Kaine to push Pence on Trump’s ‘more controversial’ statements
FARMVILLE, Va. — Sen. Tim Kaine will attempt to tap into his inner attack dog and try to corner his rival, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, into defending Donald Trump’s most controversial comments Tuesday night.
Jen Palmieri, communications director for the Clinton campaign, predicted there would be “fireworks” at the only vice presidential debate this cycle. “Gov. Pence should expect that Sen. Kaine will push him on comments the Trump campaign should answer for,” she said. “We’ll see if he is willing to embrace some of the more controversial and insensitive comments Donald Trump has made or [if] he [will] be more concerned about protecting his own credibility.”
The debate comes after a bad week for Trump, who stumbled during his first matchup against Clinton last week and has since fallen in the polls.
Pence, an establishment-oriented Republican politician who served in Congress and now as governor of Indiana, doesn’t always agree with his outsider running mate. He’s distanced himself from Trump’s conspiratorial claim that President Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent, his stance on human activity not affecting climate change, and Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladmir Putin, whom Pence called “evil.”
But in another interview, the governor was asked if he believed former Ku Klux Klan leader and Trump supporter David Duke is “deplorable,” Pence said he did not want to engage in “name-calling.” That moment could come up in Tuesday night’s debate.
The Clinton campaign released a web video ahead of the debate that makes the argument Pence is equivalent to Trump.
Meanwhile, Kaine is putting his own civil rights record front and center during the matchup to argue that the Clinton campaign stands for inclusion while the Trump campaign represents exclusion. He invited the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Henry Marsh, the first black mayor of Richmond and leader in school desegregation efforts, as his guests. Kaine also invited Okianer Christian Dark, a woman he represented when he was a lawyer in a housing discrimination case, and a gay couple who fought to overturn Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Jackson told Yahoo News civil rights “should be” a focus of the debate, but that there’s no need to get into a debate about whether Trump is a racist. “I think that’s a diversion–lets focus on policy differences because that will determine the course of our country.”
Karen Finney, Kaine’s spokeswoman, told reporters that Kaine spent the hours before the debate touring the nearby Moton Museum, the student birthplace of the civil rights movement.
Finney said Kaine is prepared for Pence to be on the attack, since the Trump campaign wants to change the conversation away from the candidate’s 1995 tax returns and Twitter tirade against former Miss Universe Alicia Machado following the first presidential debate.
“They’ve admitted they’ve got to change the narrative, that’s what we think Mike Pence is going got try to do,” Finney said.
Pence may take the opportunity to introduce topics that Trump didn’t get to during his first debate with Clinton, such as emails showing Clinton Foundation donors seeking access to her when she was secretary of state and voters’ concerns over her trustworthiness. The Republican National Committee appeared to prematurely publish an article called “Who won the vice presidential debate” that said Pence’s top moments were “highlighting HIllary’s scandals” and talking about the economy.
Another potential line of attack for Pence on Kaine is his general move to the left as Clinton’s running mate — the former Virginia governor used to describe himself as pro-life.
“I think if Pence goes after Kaine’s self-described ‘pro-life’ credentials, he could land a big punch,” said Republican political analyst Liz Mair. “Liberals are very uneasy with Kaine’s supposed ‘pro-lifedom.’ And people who are pro-life, who may have heard that Kaine is, will not like his actual record if Pence notes it.”
Whatever happens, the vice presidential candidates’ running mates will be watching. Trump has promised to live tweet the action, while Clinton will be watching from Chappaqua, N.Y. “We’ll have to see how much Tweeting she does,” Palmieri said.
–Yahoo News political reporter Hunter Walker contributed to this report.
