Debate Night, A COVID-19 Moment, Trump Orders Declassification

by Gary Bauer Debate Night
The first and only vice-presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will take place tonight at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The debate will be moderated by Susan Page of USA Today, and will air at 9:00 PM ET.

I think many conservatives would agree that we have not necessarily been on offense over the last several weeks. So, tonight's debate between my good friend Vice President Pence and Senator Harris is a good opportunity to regain the momentum.

Usually vice-presidential debates are not game changers, but this one could be. If elected, Joe Biden would be 78 years old at the beginning of his first term. Donald Trump is four years younger and considerably more vital for his age. But we have been reminded in recent days about the fragility of life.

My point is that there is some chance (there always is) that one of these two individuals debating tonight could be our next president sooner than anyone might expect.

In fact, a recent poll found that 59% of voters don't expect Biden to finish his first term. The idea of "President Kamala Harris" should be deeply disturbing to every moderate and conservative voter.

I don't have to remind you about where Mike Pence stands on values issues. One of the hallmarks of his life has been his steadfast defense of religious freedom and the sanctity of life.

Harris, on the other hand, is THE MOST liberal senator, to the left of even Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, according to one analysis.

Harris supports free healthcare for illegal aliens.

Harris supports decriminalizing illegal entry into our country.

She co-sponsored Sanders's socialist healthcare scheme.

She said a 70% tax rate was a "bold" and a "fantastic" idea.

Harris supports eliminating the filibuster in order to pass the Green New Deal and pack the Supreme Court.

She supports abolishing the Electoral College.

She supports making Washington, D.C., a state, adding two more liberals to the Senate.

And when it comes to values issues, Harris is a pro-abortion extremist who can't think of one abortion she would oppose or one baby's life she would save. She has also attacked the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable group.

Irony of ironies, Harris even used the left's race-baiting tactics against Joe Biden and nearly ended his presidential ambitions early in the Democrat primary. Yet, when she was called out for agreeing to be Biden's running mate after having savaged him for working with segregationist senators, Harris dismissed such concerns as a "distraction."

A COVID-19 Moment?
Is it possible that tonight's Pence/Harris debate could provide a teaching moment on the coronavirus? It's possible, but not likely.

Senator Harris will do her best to prevent the American people from hearing the truth. But I can provide it here for you.

• COVID is a highly infectious respiratory disease.
• Since it is a new disease, NO ONE had any immunity to it. The disease is unlikely to stop spreading until we introduce effective vaccines.
• Because of the aggressive and comprehensive efforts of the Trump/Pence Administration, we will get those vaccines this year or early next year. That is record time, unprecedented in medical history.
• COVID was already spreading around the world before we even knew it existed.
• 40% of people who contract it have no symptoms and no reason to contact a doctor or go to a hospital.
• According to the Economist, Germany may have missed 82% of its cases. Worldwide, there may be 20 undetected cases for every one we discover.
• This means that the fatality rate is much lower than what the media are telling you. It is not 5%, 4%, 3%, 2% or even 1%.
• If you are older (over 70), have serious underlying health conditions – diabetes, heart failure, lung disease, etc. – contracting coronavirus presents a great risk, but even for those in that age group generally, the survivability rate is 95%.

Trump Orders Declassification
Last night President Trump tweeted that he has ordered the declassification of "any & all" documents related to the "Russia Hoax" and "the Hillary Clinton email scandal." The president also expressed his frustration that the declassification process is moving slowly, and some suspect CIA Director Gina Haspel may be responsible for that.

One important piece of information we have learned in recent days is that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama, and presumably Vice President Joe Biden, about Hillary Clinton's plot to smear Donald Trump as a Russian agent "as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server."

We also learned that the CIA forwarded this information to the FBI so it could investigate the Clinton campaign. Of course, we know that the FBI targeted the Trump campaign instead.

What this shows is that the only 2016 candidate plotting with foreign interests to interfere in the election was Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden and Barack Obama knew it.

Clinton hired a former British intelligence agent who then called on his Russian assets to contrive the now infamous debunked dossier.

Of course, not one of the Big Three networks devoted even one second to this important story, but that's exactly what you would expect from the media arm of the Democrat Party.

Michelle's Message
Former First Lady Michelle Obama jumped into the political fray yesterday by releasing a video in which she lied about the riots and smeared the president. It was character assassination against the president, but it was worse than that. It was character assassination against the entire country.

The left has been playing the race card for years in ways that only serve to deepen racial divides. This country is so decent and so good that the worst possible thing you can say about an individual is that they are a racist. That's why they keep saying it.

The left can't win the argument over America's role in the world, the size of government, religious liberty or the sanctity of life. So they always fall back to the last sign of how evil they are.

They tell the country, including children of this increasingly diverse country, that a particular president, a particular party and conservatives in general are racists. You can't say anything worse than that.

And for the first woman of color to be the First Lady of the United States to engage in this sort of race baiting is outrageous.

Don't get me wrong: I know racism still exists. It is a sin and should be confronted. But how is it that this "horribly evil and systemically racist nation" twice elected a black man as president?

And show me the black prime minister of Canada. Show me the black prime minister of Great Britain. Show me the black president of France. Show me the black chancellor of Germany. I could go on, but you get the point.

In his first four years, Donald Trump did more for black Americans (here, here, here and here) than Barack, Michelle and Joe Biden did in eight years, and more than the Democrat Party, with its history of segregation and Jim Crow, has done in decades.

Anytime you hear Michelle Obama speak, just remember that she once said she had never been proud of America until her husband won the 2008 Democrat Party nomination.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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