Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had their first and only debate on Wednesday night. And for nearly all of those 90 minutes, Pence lied and deflected his way out of tough questions about the Trump administration s mismanagement of the coronavirus , the tanking economy, their attacks on health care and the seriousness of climate change .

President Donald Trump faced questions on some of these same subjects last week in his debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden . But what was different this time around was that Pence showed what it looks like when someone without the impulsive mania of the president has to defend an administrations record that is all but indefensible.

Instead of talking over his opponent, Pence found more polite ways to avoid answering for the administrations mistakes.

In one instance, Pence tried to offset criticism of the White Houses handling of the COVID-19 pandemic with an attack on Bidens role in containing the swine flu in 2009 and 2010.

We actually do know what failure looks like in a pandemic, Pence claimed. It was 2009. Swine flu arrived in the United States.

There is simply no comparison between the destruction wrought by COVID-19 and the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu. As Pence went on to admit, the swine flu killed fewer than 13,000 Americans compared with the more than 211,000 who have died of COVID-19 and the 7.5 million who have tested positive for the virus. Because H1N1 was far less contagious, it also did not require a shutdown of the economy and drastic changes to Americans way of life. And, as yet, there is no vaccine for COVID-19.

On the economy, Harris said the Trump administrations failure to respond to the coronavirus has led to 1 in 5 businesses closing and more than 30 million Americans filing for unemployment.

Trump measures the strength of the economy based on how rich people are doing, Harris said, which is why he passed a tax bill benefiting the top 1% and the biggest corporations of America, leading to a $2 trillion deficit that the American people are going to have to pay for.

Pence didnt address the nations suffering economy and instead accused Biden of trying to tax and spend and regulate and fail our way back to a growing economy when he was vice president.

Despite what Sen. Harris says, the average American family of four had $2,000 in savings and taxes, he said, glossing over the fact that Trump has left the country teetering on the edge of a recession.

Pences silence in response to hard questions also spoke volumes. He pivoted to other issues when asked about health care.

President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and to protect preexisting conditions for all Americans, the vice president claimed, which is something Trump and Republicans have been saying for years but have never produced. On the contrary, the Trump administration is actively trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act , which more than 20 million Americans rely on for health care.