First Thing election special: Pence and Harris performed politics as usual

Good morning. It is perhaps a measure of the vice-presidential debate’s relative mundanity that its most exciting moment was when a fly landed on Mike Pence’s stark, white hair and stayed there for more than a minute, unbeknown to the vice-president.

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Harris calls Trump’s coronavirus response ‘greatest failure’ of any administration – video

The most heated clash between the candidates came when Democrat Kamala Harris described the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as the “greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country”, while Pence smoothly insisted that “from the very first day, President Trump has put the health of America first”.

In a uniquely chaotic campaign season, Harris v Pence felt almost like politics as usual – and offered a preview of 2024, when both will be leading contenders for their parties’ presidential nominations. But it nonetheless showed two contrasting faces of America, writes David Smith: “One: white, male, midwestern, evangelical Christian. The other: Black, female, coastal, progressive.”

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‘I’m speaking’: Kamala Harris reins in Mike Pence during VP debate – video

Richard Wolffe argues that Pence gamely took on the difficult task of defending the indefensible: “A disastrous and preventable death toll, a collapsing economy and a Covid-infected president.” But ultimately, Harris wiped the floor with him, says Jill Filipovic:

Pence ignored, patronized and talked over the two women in the room. Her strategy was cool competence. His was sexist entitlement.

Trump says his Covid-19 infection was ‘like a blessing from God’

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Donald Trump says catching Covid-19 was ‘like a blessing from God’ – video

Appearing even more caked with tan than usual, Donald Trump posted a video from the White House on Wednesday, likening his coronavirus infection to “a blessing from God”, and suggesting his recovery was down to an experimental drug cocktail from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which he claimed would soon be available for free to all US Covid-19 patients.

As Jessica Glenza reports, the president received the sort of five-star medical care that would cost most ordinary Americans millions. And many of those who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 say they are appalled by his insistence that people should not be “afraid” of the disease.

• At least 27 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, though ABC News has obtained an internal government memo suggesting the true tally of White House infections is now up to 34.

• A top US government immunologist has quit his post after publicly criticising Trump’s response to the pandemic. Dr Rick Bright, who was already ousted from a role overseeing vaccine development for the administration, said the White House “ignores scientific expertise, overrules public health guidance and disrespects career scientists.”

Coronavirus has forced people to consider the interconnectedness of our many actions and their consequences. But that very idea runs contrary to Trumpism, argues Rebecca Solnit:

The contemporary right has one central principle: nothing is really connected to anything else, so no one has any responsibility for anything else, and any attempt to, say, prevent a factory from poisoning a river is an infringement on freedom.

McConnell doesn’t care for our Amy Coney Barrett coverage

The Republican senate majority leader has lashed out at reports by the Guardian and other outlets about the conservative Christian background of the supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and her close links to the strict Catholic group People of Praise. Mitch McConnell, who still plans to push through Barrett’s supreme court confirmation before election day, said such coverage would “demean the confirmation process, disrespect the constitution and insult millions of American believers”.

Progressives are concerned that Barrett’s religious affiliations will sway her legal opinions, specifically on Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling which made abortion legal across the US. Republicans have claimed that opposition to Barrett’s nomination is symptomatic of an entrenched anti-Catholicism among Democrats. (Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic house speaker, are both Catholics.)

In other election news…

• Facebook says it will stop political advertising on its platform after election day on 3 November for an undetermined period of time, in an effort to “protect the integrity” of the vote “by fighting foreign interference, misinformation and voter suppression”, the company said in a blog post.

• Trump’s accountant must turn over his tax records to the office of Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, an appeals court has ruled, setting up a likely supreme court fight over access to the president’s personal finances.

• The US economy is at a ‘watershed moment’, economists warned on Wednesday, after Trump issued contradictory messages on whether he would agree to a fresh round of stimulus aid for people and businesses hit by the pandemic.

Stat of the day

Even Trump’s favourite pollster now has him trailing Joe Biden by double digits nationally. Rasmussen, which the president recently praised as “one of the most accurate in 2016”, took its latest poll as he was being treated for Covid-19, and found Biden leading Trump by 12 points, 52% to 40%, among 2,500 likely voters.

View from the right

The rightwing press largely agreed with the leftwing press that Pence made the president’s case for re-election more effectively than Trump has made it himself.

To Timothy P Carney of the Washington Examiner, Harris’s most telling line of the night was when she said, of a potential coronavirus vaccine: “If Donald Trump tells us we should take it, I’m not taking it.”

If Trump says it, I’m against it, is simply the perfect motto for Democrats, and much of the media. Policies that Democrats used to support, they came to oppose because Trump was for them. Truths the media used to espouse, they now denied under Trump.

Last Thing: A damning portrait of Trump’s pandemic failures

Made in secret and completed the day before Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis, Totally Under Control is an attention-grabbing documentary about the administration’s pandemic failures, which exposes a “hollow performance of authority”, writes Charles Bramesco in his review: “A key plank in Trump’s doctrine of going through the motions of governance while amassing private wealth and massaging his own ego.”

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