Last night's vice presidential debate,
the first and only debate
between the two people who will take over
if the president falls in the shower.
And it was a weird situation from the start,
because there is a real chance that Pence could have COVID-19,
even though he's tested negative.
And that fear wasn't helped when Pence's eye
threw a gender-reveal party.
Pink! It's a girl!
Blood pink!
It's a girl!
So to keep everyone safe, the debate commission decided
to install plexiglass barriers on stage--
which sounded good...
until we saw the barriers,
and they were basically just the sneeze guards from Sizzlers.
I mean, seriously, who thought of a thin sheet of plexiglass
being a good idea?
Oh, this will stop the coronavirus.
Viruses can't go up, right? They don't go up.
They just go like this?
But once you got past the whole "plague" thing,
the debate itself was actually pretty normal.
Two calm, poised candidates exchanging lines
that they had been practicing for weeks
over the course of a largely uneventful 90 minutes.
You know what it felt like, it was...
kind of like a throwback to what campaigns used to be like.
You know? Before Donald Trump arrived on the scene
and turned every political event
into a monster truck rally on cocaine.
Because you remember, in the last debate,
Trump would not shut up for a second.
And Pence, he doesn't have it in him to be that obnoxiously rude.
But he did take one important lesson from Trump's performance.
When the moderator tells you that your time is up,
that's really more of a suggestion than a rule.
There are no more hurricanes today
-Thank you. -than there were a hundred years ago.
-Thank you, Vice... -But many of the climate alarmists use...
Vice President Pence, I'm sorry, your time is up.
-...hurricanes and wildfires to try -Thank you,
-Vice President Pence. -and sell their bill of goods
of a Green New Deal...
He said it was hysterical.
-He said it was xenophobic. -Thank you,
-Vice President Pence. -But President Trump has stood up
-to China, -Vice President Pence, your time is up.
We're gonna continue to stand strong...
Thank you, Vice President Pence.
-Under President Trump's leadership, we'll -Thank you,
-Vice President Pence. -always stand with law enforcement,
-and we'll do what we've done... -Vice President Pence,
-(continues talking) -thank you, your time is up.
...improve the lives of African Americans,
-Thank you, Vice President Pence. -record unemployment...
President Donald Trump not only respects but reveres
all of those who serve in our armed forces,
-and any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous. -Thank you,
-Vice President Pence. -Let me also say...
Okay, I would think that after trying
"Thank you, Vice President, thank you,
thank you, Vice President" 30 times,
you might try out a different line like,
"Yo, stop it. Yo, Vice President,
yo, Pence, shut the (bleep) up."
The problem with saying "Thank you, Vice President Pence"
is that it's just too gentle.
Like, for all we know, in Mike Pence's mind,
he thought she was just his hype man.
Thank you, Vice President Pence!
Oh, you tell them, Vice President Pence!
Yo, you see that? Yo, that's my boy!
Vice President Pence, thank you!
And honestly, do you know what this shows?
This shows you that Donald Trump is a bad influence
on innocent little Mike Pence.
Four years ago, Pence would never have dreamed
of being a rule breaker, but look at him now.
If Pence spends four more years with Trump,
by the end of the next term, he'll be polyamorous with Mother
and some dude named Wildcat he met in a biker gang.
And at some point,
I'm not even sure why debates like these have moderators.
Like, what is their job?
Because it's not cutting off the candidates.
And it's definitely not holding them accountable
for what they say.
I mean, anybody, anybody can say anything they want
in these debates, and there's nobody calling them out for it.
I-I really don't get why you can't fact-check the candidates
when they lie.
In fact, most of the lies, you can pre-fact-check,
because these people use the same lies over and over again.
You don't even have to wait for them to say it.
The moderator could just be like, "Uh, this next question
"is about health care, and, Mike Pence,
"please don't say you and Trump have a plan
"to protect preexisting conditions,
because we all know that's B.S."
President and I have a plan to improve health care.
And to pros... protect preexisting conditions
for every American.
Bitch! What did I just say?
But look, not everything is the moderator's problem.
Ultimately, it's up to the candidates to decide
what kind of debate they're going to have.
And last night, it seemed like both candidates made the choice
to dodge any question that they didn't feel like answering.
Vice President Mike Pence
and Senator Kamala Harris
tackled the issues and exchanged attacks,
but they spent much of the night
dodging critical questions.
Harris wouldn't answer the question
about the court packing.
Pence wouldn't answer the question
about why the U.S. death rate from COVID
is so much worse than any other wealthy country.
And he wouldn't commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
NEWSMAN: Both candidates did a great job
of not answering questions they didn't want to answer,
uh, from climate change to China.
They did a good job of sort of ducking and dodging.
It's wild to me that you can just refuse
to answer a question when you're applying
for the second most important job in the country.
There is not a single other job that would let you do that.
Even if you were applying to be a grocery store clerk,
and they asked you, "Do you have a criminal record?"
You could never say, "Man, I'll tell you what a crime was.
"What happened to Issa and Molly's relationship
"this season.
"Friends gotta stick together, man.
"That's what I think.
So I start Tuesday?"
But let's be honest here.
While Kamala Harris
definitely dodged the hell out of that court-packing question,
it was Pence who was dodging topics all night,
like they were a PG-13 movie.
And look, I get it.
Defending Donald Trump is like trying to sell a house
that is currently on fire.
It is not an easy job.
I know, I know, but just think about how much you'll save
on the heating bill. Huh?
But still, Pence's habit of answering
a completely different question from the one he was asked,
I, like, it was extremely irritating for me.
Or at least it was irritating,
until we made a game show out of it.
♪ ♪
Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week
that on day one he was going to repeal the Trump tax cuts.
♪ ♪
(tape rewinding)
I-I couldn't be more proud to serve as vice president
to a president who stands without apology
for the sanctity of human life.
I'm pro-life.
I-I don't apologize for it.
♪ ♪
(tape rewinding)
Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general,
was responsible for the death
of hundreds of American service members.
When the opportunity came, we saw him headed to Baghdad
to kill more Americans, President Trump didn't hesitate,
and Qasem Soleimani is gone.
♪ ♪
(tape rewinding)
♪ ♪
I can't believe I lost $40,000 on that game.
Now, it would be unfair to say that no part of last night
was worth watching,
because for a couple of minutes,
specifically two minutes and nine seconds,
the debate got amazing.
A fly stole the spotlight.
It landed on Vice President Mike Pence's head
and stayed there for about two minutes.
Everyone but Pence seemed to notice.
NEWSMAN: The fly that landed on Mr. Pence's head
and sat there for two minutes and nine seconds...
I thought that the most effective, uh...
being on that stage to go after Vice President Pence
was that fly that landed on his head.
Who would have predicted a fly would steal the show?
Okay, can I just say that I was not surprised at all
to see that fly land on Mike Pence.
First of all, even a fly knows better
than to touch a Black woman's hair.
And second, have you seen Mike Pence?
The guy has bloody eyes and the world's palest skin.
That fly probably thought he was a dead body.
Fly was like, "Yo, this is where I be."
Then it was like, "Whoa, this shit moved!"
And look, flies land on people all the time.
There's nothing crazy about that.
What was crazy is how long it sat there for.
Even Trump was watching at home like,
"Wow, two minutes with Mike Pence.
"I could never do that.
"We got to get that fly into the White House.
Such a powerful, strong fly."
So, that was the vice presidential debate.
But if you think you found it frustrating as a viewer,
that's nothing compared to how frustrated Kamala Harris was.
And you could tell,
because from the minute the evening started,
Kamala was throwing out
"are you kidding me" facial expressions
faster than the Internet could even meme them.
And while a lot of people felt her pain,
certain other people did not.
Well, not even the plexiglass
could contain that strong side-eye
that Kamala Harris was giving the vice president.
And I think what people took away from it
was a bit abrasive, a bit condescending.
I don't think she did a good job of making herself likable,
and the scowls and the funny faces
were not that helpful.
Those facial expressions and the way she behaved
were really off-putting.
She could do little more than make these awkward smiles
and just shake her head.
The only real mistake Kamala Harris made tonight
was the oversmirking, oversmiling.
That same kind of haughty,
um, smug, smirking framework
that is not a good look on men or women.
Yeah. You know what, guys? I hate to admit it,
but these guys on Fox News are right.
Kamala Harris shouldn't be making expressions with her face
during a debate.
She should be more like Mike Pence.
Keep a stone-cold serial killer stare
and express all your emotion through your one bloody eye.
Because, to me, these criticisms always reveal so much
about men who are uncomfortable
with a woman in power, you know?
They're like, "Her demeanor was so unlikable.
"What is she gonna do next,
"tell me I'm a disappointment to her and my stepfather
"for coming home from the sleepover early
"after I wet the bed? Huh?
'Cause I don't do that anymore."
So, it turns out Kamala's facial expressions
were a big topic of conversation after the debate,
and Dulcé Sloan had her own thoughts about it.
So, last night, some people on TV had some thoughts
about Kamala Harris's facial expressions
during the debate.
They said she looked condescending,
angry and annoyed.
And when I heard that, I thought, "Well, yeah.
She's in a room with Mike Pence."
His own wife looks like that when she's near him.
But you know what? The people calling out Kamala have a point.
If you're leading America,
you can't make weird faces during a debate.
You have to make dignified faces,
like this one.
That's the expression of a dude who just swallowed a turd
and realized he likes how it tastes.
That last four seconds had every single emoji.
I mean, I've never seen anybody's eyebrows
try to escape their face.
Kamala, if you're hearing something you don't like,
don't get mad.
React with class, like President Trump does here.
That's my president,
a man with restless bitch face.
Look at that. He looks like they told him
he's ten minutes too late for the breakfast menu.
I mean, that's the face you make
when your daughter tells you she just wants to be friends.
But my favorite presidential debate face
is this one.
I've seen this face many times before.
It's under my cat's tail when she's walking away from me.
I mean, damn, look at that thing.
If you're not gonna blur it out,
at least give us time to get the kids out of the room.
So, to Kamala, I say learn from the president,
because if you're using the same expressions he's using,
they won't be saying, "She's angry"
or, "She's patronizing."
They'll be saying, "Damn.
I think she's having a stroke."
And to all of you out there
giving your opinions on Kamala's facial expressions,
shut the (bleep) up.