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All the Moments That Mattered in Last Night’s VP Debate
Live commentary from Sarah Stankorb, Garance Franke-Ruta, Max Ufberg, and Andrea González-Ramírez
Garance Franke-Ruta: Hi, I’m Garance, executive editor of GEN. Tonight’s live-from-Utah face-off is the vice presidential debate in name only. In truth, tonight is the coronavirus debate.
Since Donald Trump revealed last Friday that he caught the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the 2020 campaign has become a giant contact tracing investigation. An ever-widening circle of people who have had contact with the White House or Trump — or with people who had contact with them — have been diagnosed with Covid-19. Indeed, as I was writing this introduction reporters announced two more names: the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps and Crede Bailey, head of the White House security office.
Here’s our up-to-date list of everyone in Trump’s Covid-19 cluster.
Trump, for his part, released a video right before the debate touting as a Covid-19 cure the experimental monoclonal antibody manufactured by Regeneron, whose CEO, Leonard Schleifer, MD, PhD, “has been a member at Trump’s golf club in Westchester,” according to a report two days ago about its soaring stock price. Regeneron was awarded $500 million in July as part of White House’s Operation Warp Speed to develop Covid-19 treatments and vaccines.
Oh, and Vice President Mike Pence should be in quarantine, not on the debate stage. His spokeswoman, Katie Miller, had to be sent home from Utah after her husband, Stephen Miller, tested positive for the virus, presumably contracted while helping Trump prepare for the last debate. Pence also spent time with Trump indoors and unmasked at a White House event for Gold Star Families the day after attending the indoor and outdoor Amy Coney Barrett gatherings that appear to have sickened so many less than two weeks ago.
This debate has not even begun yet and I am already so very tired.
