Bill Clinton criticized President Obama’s most significant policy achievement while campaigning for Hillary Clinton this week, breaking with his wife’s public practice by referring to aspects of the Obamacare system as “the craziest thing in the world.”
At a rally for Democrats in Flint, Mich., on Monday, Clinton said the current system works fine for seniors on Medicare, poor people on Medicaid and low-income earners who qualify for Obamacare subsidies.
But small-business owners and individuals who make just a little too much to qualify for government subsidies are “getting killed in this deal,” the former president said.
There was no shortage of interruptions and insults during the first and only vice presidential debate of 2016.
Here are some of the major exchanges between vice presidential nominees Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.
A conversation on abortion took a turn when Tim Kaine questioned Donald Trump's ability to lead by criticizing his past statements on Mexican immigrants.
"Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again," Pence responded. (Here's the full transcript of their exchange.)
"That Mexican thing" immediately struck a chord with debate-watchers. Already, www.thatMexicanthing.com redirects back to Hillary Clinton campaign's official website.
When asked to discuss the threat of terrorism Tuesday, Sen. Tim Kaine took the opportunity to outline Hillary Clinton's plan to defeat Islamic State: Take out the network's leadership, disrupt its financing and recruiting and work with allies "to share and surge intelligence."
"She's got the experience to do it," he said, before pivoting to attack Donald Trump for his "secret" plans.
It might be one of the best examples Tuesday of how Kaine's own priorities have become secondary to Clinton's. Left unmentioned was perhaps a signature cause during Kaine's nearly four years in the Senate: his insistence that further military action against the Islamic State extremist group requires congressional approval.
Tim Kaine opposes the death penalty, describing his stance as a "moral position." He also represented death-row inmates as a defense lawyer, something his Republican opponent tried to use against him when Kaine ran for governor in Virginia.
"But I looked the voters of Virginia in the eye and said, 'Look, this is my religion. I'm not going to change my religious practice to get one vote. But I know how to take an oath and uphold the law. And if you elect me I will uphold the law,'" Kaine recalled Tuesday night as he discussed how his faith informed his public service.
After he was elected, Kaine still allowed death sentences to be carried out because it was state law. Eleven inmates were executed during his tenure from 2006 to 2010.
Our judges say Mike Pence won on style and Tim Kaine on substance, and that Pence's strong showing could help moderate Republicans back to the ticket.
Perhaps one of the most personal, intense policy arguments of Tuesday's vice presidential debate was on the issue of abortion. This, despite the fact that Mike Pence and Tim Kaine are both against the practice.
What separates them is whether their personal views should dictate public policy. Kaine offered a lengthy explanation of why he feels it should not, starting initially on the subject of the death penalty, which he opposes but carried out as Virginia governor.
Kaine personally opposes abortion. However, he's supported keeping the procedure legal and has earned a perfect voting record from Planned Parenthood.
Mike Pence exaggerated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's meetings with donors to her family foundation when she was secretary of State, saying in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate that they were far more extensive than they actually were.
Pence repeated a statement from a retracted Associated Press tweet — that more than half of those who met with Clinton when she was the nation's top diplomat had given money to the Clinton Foundation. The AP deleted the tweet because it was incorrect.
The tweet linked to an AP story that found 85 of the 154 people in the private sector listed on Clinton's State Department calendars as meeting with her were linked to donations to her family charity.
After a third round that focused on faith and foreign policy, both candidates delivered solid performances but neither came out on top.
In a feverish exchange about falsehoods, GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence claimed that Democratic rival Tim Kaine was misstating Donald Trump’s position on nuclear proliferation.
Kaine said that Trump has said that more nations should have nuclear weapons.
“He never said that,” Pence said.
Gov. Mike Pence took a hard line when it came to Russia, a somewhat surprising turn given what has been the Putin-friendly posture of his running mate.
"The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength," Pence said during a discussion of the conflict in Syria during Tuesday's vice presidential debate.
He later suggested that the United States should deploy a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, one that he noted President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opted against early in the president's term (the U.S. and NATO have since moved to bolster its presence in Eastern Europe).