Tim Kaine and Mike Pence Face Off on Institutional Racism, Russia, and More at VP Debate

Tim Kaine and Mike Pence faced off on Tuesday night in the only Vice Presidential debate of the campaign. The often fractious evening found the candidates mostly talking over each other and over the moderator, Elaine Quijano. Mike Pence overcame his initial stumble of getting the location wrong and mostly came off as smooth-talking and reasonable, but was called out both by Kaine and by many commentators for not actually defending the man at the top of his ticket. Kaine frequently defended Hillary Clinton, but spent much of the debate laying out Donald Trump's weaknesses as opposed to answering the questions.

The debate took a surreal turn towards the end, when the candidates talked about Russia. Pence went out of his way to talk tough, describing Russian leader Vladimir Putin as "small" and even saying that the U.S. should use force if necessary to prevent Russia from taking more territory. This comes in noted contrast to Donald Trump, who has repeatedly praised Putin over the course of the campaign.

Kaine, as mentioned, brought up Trump's seemingly endless list of controversial statements and stances: his attack on a judge's Mexican ancestry; his remarks about women (one of Kaine's best lines was, "Donald Trump can’t start a Twitter war with Miss Universe without shooting himself in the foot."); his mocking of John McCain for being a P.O.W.; and much more. Pence, in turn, accused Kaine and Clinton of running an "insult-driven campaign."

One moment that received a lot of attention was when Pence pushed back against the concept of implicit bias in policing, which Hillary Clinton talked about during the first presidential debate. Pence said that "accusing" law enforcement of implicit bias or institutional racism "has got to stop."