Culture Friday - Debate bright spots

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 9th of October, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Let’s back up to Wednesday night and a key question that really hasn’t been answered in our political debates—namely, would a new Democratic administration seek to increase the size of the Supreme Court, as a measure to re-assert ideological control of it.

The question’s been asked, but never answered directly. 

We’d like to play for you an exchange from the vice-presidential debate.

Vice President Pence sought to do the job the news media have failed so far to do. The entire thing consumed close to four minutes, so I’m going to compress.

But here’s how it began…

PENCE/HARRIS: Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the court if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed? In 186- … I’d like you to answer the question … Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking. I am speaking.

Senator Kamala Harris—Joe Biden’s running mate—then spent the next 59 seconds speaking, but instead making the point that it’s too close to an election to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court.

The moderator thanks her…

PENCE/HARRIS: Thank you, Senator Harris. Susan, the American people are voting right now. They’d like to know if you and Joe Biden are going to pack the Supreme Court if you don’t get your way in this nomination. Let’s talk about packing … come on. You once again gave a non-answer. Joe Biden gave a non-answer. … Trying to answer you now. Haha. American people deserve a straight answer. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, the straight answer is, they are going to pack the Supreme Court. Yeah, let’s talk about packing the court, then. Let’s talk about the fact — Please. I’m about to.

About to talk about the president’s appointments to lower courts, but not about packing the Supreme Court. That rumination consumed about 30 more seconds.

PENCE/HARRIS: Let’s have that discussion. All right, thank you. Thank you, senator. Let’s go on and talk about the issue of racial justice. I just want the record to reflect she never answered the question.

BROWN: As it turned out, the Wednesday night debate was fairly substantial. They did talk about COVID, about energy policy, climate change, taxes, racial justice protests and the extent to which some have turned violent, and the pro-life issue—with the candidates offering contrasting views—largely without interruptions.

EICHER: It’s Culture Friday and so let’s welcome in John Stonestreet. John is president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

BROWN: Good morning, John!

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning, Myrna. Good morning, Nick.

EICHER: You know, Vice President Pence does have a good reputation as a Christian gentleman. We said a lot about the boorishness and embarrassment of the first debate. Wasn’t this, culturally, a nice change of pace?

STONESTREET: Well, it was far more watchable and, of course, we had an unexpected visitor in the middle of it in the form of a fly, which spawned some of the great Twitter comments of our year. And, you know, it’s kind of hard to make a fly partisan. And it’s been a remarkable year in which everything else has been made partisan. So, everybody could kind of poke fun at that.

I did appreciate the fact that the issues were actually clarified. And I did appreciate the clear contrast. And I thought both candidates did a very—worked very hard to distinguish what they were doing. And I thought that was a burden for the Biden-Harris campaign, particularly on COVID, because everything that they’ve said so far looks like the plan Trump and Pence have, with very few distinctions.

But all in all, if you watched this—as opposed to the presidential debate—you learned far  more about the policy positions of the various campaigns and so in that sense, hopefully, it at least provided a little more light last night than heat. And that, of course, was the exact opposite of the presidential debate.

EICHER: I want to ask you, John, how you felt about what we just heard in the set up about how Vice President Pence went after this question of court packing, the idea that if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed and becomes a justice on the Supreme Court, the suggestion that if the Biden-Harris ticket wins and the Democrats gain control of the Senate, that they’ll increase the size of the Supreme Court and name a bunch of their own justices to the court. That’s the idea of court packing. How do you think Pence did in pursuing that line of inquiry?

STONESTREET: You know, I thought that that was the bright spot of the presidential debate for President Trump is that it was clear that Biden did not want to answer the question about court packing. And as obvious as it was in the first debate when so little was obvious, it was just bright and clear in this one that Biden and Harris do not want to answer that question. Which tells you one of two things. Either they have their mind made up about  what they’re going to do, or they’re holding their cards depending on what happens with Amy Coney Barrett. 

If it goes through, then I think—if the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett goes through, I think we can absolutely expect at least from all of the evasion we’ve seen so far, that the plan is to pack the court. There’s just no other explanation.

The evasiveness here, this is the biggest evasiveness of either campaign at the moment is the unwillingness to say what their plans are about packing the Supreme Court.

BROWN: I brought up the issue of pro-life last time and there was actually a discussion on that in this debate. Did you find this to be a particularly useful exchange on the abortion issue?

STONESTREET: Absolutely. I was pleased that it came up. In fact, it was an interesting moment because I think in the midst of the question he wanted to come back to something before and then he jumped on the legitimacy of the process. And then he came back to it at the end and said, “Just to be clear, I’m unapologetically pro-life. This is who I am.” So, that was really, I think, substantial. 

The thing that I thought was a missed opportunity was—and I think especially because of part of the Republican base right now that’s floundering on President Trump and identifying moral reasons for doing so, is the opportunity to say, look, just to be clear, what the Democratic platform now wants is no restrictions on abortion whatsoever—from the moment of conception to the moment of birth—and that that should be nationwide. And we also know that it will be advanced both in domestic and foreign policies. 

What I struggle with, particularly in the last couple weeks as we’ve seen a lot of voices of Republicans for Biden or evangelicals for Biden and the claim being the moral failures of the president, which of course there’s no need to try to talk down or dismiss at all. There’s plenty of moral failures there. But they have a lot to do with his tone, his abrasiveness, his treatment and talking of women and others. OK, that’s fine. 

But to talk about abortion as if it’s a policy difference rather than a moral failure, I think, is a big missed opportunity and it’s just not true. Look, you could say that Biden is a nicer guy than President Trump, but somebody who wants to advance the dismemberment of unborn children to the moment of birth and make it a priority and leverage funding both for domestic and foreign policy issues, that’s a moral failure as well. And I thought that was a missed opportunity.

EICHER: Hey, just real fast before we go, this debate was billed as much more consequential. Not just two proxies speaking for someone else, but because of the age and potential health of their bosses, this might be the main event. Did this seem like a genuine presidential debate?

STONESTREET: I don’t know, maybe it was the plexiglass, maybe it was the fly, maybe it was the school marm sort of moderator, which by the way was a dramatic improvement over the last one, I thought it still felt quite vice presidential. But maybe it was just kind of lower expectations kind of going in. But it was much more rational and it was much more helpful. And so I thought, look, maybe it could serve the purpose that vice presidential debates typically fail to serve. I think it was—I heard from several commentators afterward—I mean, look, Mike Pence does a better job defending Trump’s record than Trump does. And not only a little bit better, but a lot better. So, it at least got us there.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

BROWN: John, great to talk with you as always. Thank you!

STONESTREET: Thanks, Myrna. Thanks, Nick.

(AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool) Vice President Mike Pence listens as Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., answers a question during the vice presidential debate Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020, at Kingsbury Hall on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.