Pence’s Tough Debate Task

President Trump hasn’t exactly made tonight’s vice-presidential debate easy for Mike Pence, First Read notes.

The vice president will have to defend:

• Why the president held non-socially distant and largely mask-less events at the White House – with indoor activities – from which several attendees apparently got infected by the coronavirus.
• Why Trump, after being hospitalized at Walter Reed, jumped into a hermetically sealed SUV with Secret Service agents to wave to supporters.
• Why the president, after returning to the White House, took off his mask in public, despite still being potentially contagious.
• Why Trump instructed Americans NOT to be afraid of the coronavirus, and why he compared it again to the flu.
• And why the president – over Twitter – scuttled any chance for another coronavirus aid package before the election.

None of these is easy for Pence to answer, especially a vice president who just happens to head the White House’s coronavirus task force.