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Ever since Donald J. Trump won the Republican primary in 2016, I've had so many questions. Four years later, most of them still remain unanswered.

For example how does a man who has had so many failed businesses convince people he's a great businessman? How does a man who was fined $2 million for using misusing charitable donations for his own political gain convince people he's charitable? How does a man who paid a $25 million settlement to students he defrauded with his fake "university" convince people he'll be trustworthy with the highest office in the land? How does a man who the entire country heard say he "tried to f*ck" a married woman and grabs women "by the p*ssy" get any women to vote for him? How could a man who cheated on all three of his wives, paid hush money to a porn star, spends his Sunday mornings golfing instead of going to church, and dodges questions about the Bible gain the adoration of evangelical Christians?

It's that last question that has perhaps been the most baffling one to me. Especially considering the super devout Christian beliefs of his vice president and running mate, Mike Pence. Like, how does that even work?

Last night, former Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg, who has become a strong surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign, actually went there on Fox News. When asked why Kamala Harris seems to have some different stances on certain issues now than she did in the primary, Buttigieg pointed out the "classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates." He said if they wanted to do that, they couldthen he flipped the script and laid down the big question of why Pence, as an evangelical Christian, would want to be on a ticket with a man who was caught with a porn star.

Yep, he did.

Even the Fox News anchors seemed a bit stunned for a second. Weren't expecting that, were we?

Now, some may sayand rightly sothat it's no one's business what a man does in private, but that doesn't exactly jibe with famously anti-LBGTQ+ Mike Pence's ultra-conservative views on what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms. And we still don't have an answer as to how Pence looks at himself in the mirror in the morning before going to work for a man who embodies everything Christ taught against.

I mean, it's not like Pence has distanced himself from Trump at all. Every time he opens his mouth, the first words that pop out are some kind of gushing praise for the president. Seeing people's positive qualities is one thing, but this is something else entirely. There are entire videos made about Pence's historically sycophantic butt-kissing, and it's the first thing that stands out the most to me when I see him walk up to a podium and start speaking. It's genuinely weird and creepy under any circumstances, but considering the gaping canyon between what Mike Pence purports to be about and what Donald Trump actually is, it's mind-boggling.

Seriously. It hurts the brain to try to make sense of it. Part of me wishes Kamala Harris had asked him that question last night, but she'd probably get called trashy for it.

Buttigieg is on a roll with his Fox News appearances, calmly and eloquently smashing through the network's standard pro-Trump tropes and laying out the facts matter-of-factly.

The guy really is good at getting to the heart of the matter. Here he is sharing his thoughts on the president backing out of next week's debate because he doesn't want to do it virtually (despite the fact that tens of millions of us are working and learning and communicating with loved ones virtuallyand the vast majority of us aren't actively infected with COVID).

So many questions about this president and those who continue clinging to his sinking ship remain unanswered. All I can come up with is that partisanship combined with a cult of personality makes one hell of a cocktail.

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On Fox News, Pete Buttigieg posed the 'Mike Pence question' so many of us have wondered about - Upworthy

From Ali G to Borat, here's a look back at some of his most memorable moments. USA TODAY

More than a decade after college students everywhere raised their hands for high fives and hollered "very nice," the sequel to the 2006 film Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is set to be released.

Amazon Prime will release the movie featuring Sacha Baron Cohen's raunchycharacter on Oct. 23. The feature film is titled "The Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

The film follows BorattouringAmerica again, but this time with his daughter. In a trailer released by Amazon, Borat is shown with what appears to be his daughterover his shoulder as he breaks into the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)dressed like President Donald Trump, offering her toVice President Mike Pence.

I brought the girl for you! Borat calls out.

You can see the moment in the trailer here. If you rewind to watch the mockumentary'strailer in full, be warned, you may find itextremely offensive.

So, was that film real, or was that just Hollywood getting creative with editing? It's true that Cohen interrupted Pence's remarks at CPAC onFeb. 27, 2020, in National Harbor, Maryland. Whether he was holding a real actress over his shoulder or a life-size doll, is not immediately clear.

Multiple cameras from media and guests in attendance captured the moment a few minutes into Pence's speech. On CSPAN, Borat's voice can be heard trying to appeal to Pence before the crowd starts to collectively chant "USA, USA, USA."

The stuntbegins around the 9-minute mark, and Cohen, looking like Trump, can beseen in the crowd around the 9:43mark.

Onlookers can be seen liftingcell phones to document Cohen being escorted out of the room in the network's footage, without the woman he appears to have carried into the hall. Here's what one look of the actor's exit looked like from someone in the room:

The Daily Caller, a conservative opinion media group, put several onlookers perspectives of Cohen's exit together, too.

Charges against Cohen were not pursued after the incident.

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Nate Chute is a producer with the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter at @nchute

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Did Borat really crash Mike Pence's CPAC speech? Here's what videos from the day showed. - Courier & Press

The vice presidential debate is scheduled for October 7, and will be hosted at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Vice presidential debates rarely change the course of presidential elections but could showcase the strengths and vulnerabilities of each ticket weeks before the November election.

While the vice presidential candidates are only set to debate once, Trump and Biden are scheduled to debate three times. The schedule was set last year by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.

It is unclear whether Trump's campaign has officially agreed to appear at the commission's three scheduled debates, but the Trump campaign has called for a fourth debate to be added to the schedule in early September. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who represents the Trump campaign on debate issues, sent a letter to the commission with that request and noted that millions of Americans will have the ability to vote early before the first general election debate in late September.

But the commission has said it will only back an additional meeting if both the candidates agree to the contest, and the Biden camp has said it will participate in the three debates already scheduled.

Two of the presidential debates were moved because of the coronavirus pandemic. The first presidential debate will take place at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland on September 29. The second presidential debate will take place on October 15 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. And the third presidential debate will take place at Belmont University in Nashville on October 22.

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Kamala Harris and Mike Pence scheduled to face off at ...

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EAU CLAIRE - Vice President Mike Pence stopped in western Wisconsin on Thursday to rally support for the Trump administration's efforts to revive the nation's economy clobbered by the coronavirus pandemic and to fight for voters in a politicallyunpredictable area of the state.

To a crowd of about 100 seated on the floor of a Midwest Manufacturing distribution building on the campus of Menards' headquarters, Pence said President Donald Trump will continue to impose tariffs in an effort to "level the playing field for American workers."

"It's a win for American jobs and American farmers," Pence said about the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. "This president stood strong and drew a hard bargain for Wisconsin dairy. It's true."

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Midwest Manufacturing in Eau Claire on Thursday.(Photo: Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Pence said Trump also pushed back against Canada over allowing product lines that would crowd out American dairy products.

"Canada agreed to end the unfair treatment of dairy farmers and we're going to increase our dairy exports by more than $300 million that's a win," Pence said, referring to projections from the International Trade Association.

While advocatesdescribe the trade agreement as a better deal than NAFTA, Brookings Institution fellowGeoffrey Gertzhas saidthe new pact"looks remarkably similar" to the agreement it would replace.

Among the biggest changes, he wrote in a 2018 analysis, were higher rules-of-origin requirements in the automobile industry and "marginally greater U.S. access to the Canadian dairy market."

Democrats have blasted the Trump administration's efforts to bolster a collapsing dairy industry in Wisconsin, pointing to arecent CNBC investigation that showed U.S. trade aid benefited mostly large farms and not the typical-size farm that has struggled in the state in recent years.

SPECIAL REPORT: Dairyland in Distress

Republicans see western Wisconsin the swingiest region of this swing state as a key to a successful re-election bid in Wisconsin. U.S. Rep. Ron Kinds district, the 3rd Congressional District, voted Democratic for president by 11 points in 2012, Republican for president by 4 points in 2016, and Democratic for governor by 2 points and Democratic for U.S. Senate by 13 points in 2018.

Farmers have takena lot of the economic hitsin Wisconsin in recent years.But Republicans have more than a 20-point edge over Democrats in how farm families describe their partisan leaning in Wisconsin, according to polling by the Marquette Law School.

And Trump has a similar margin over Biden among farm familiesin Marquette's polling dating back to last fall.

Wisconsin billionaire John Menard, the state's wealthiest resident and a GOP donor, and his family were seated among the crowd. Pence wasjoined by Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter and adviser, and U.S Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.

Pence made his pitch for manufacturing the same week Wisconsin's top elected Republican delivered a very different message on the issue. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson this week touted outsourcing jobs, saying "it makes no sense for American workers to produce high-labor-content products" when businesses can get them "dirt cheap" overseas.

While Thursday's event was billed as one focused on manufacturing jobs, Pence also keyed inon two issues the Trump campaign is depending on to improve the president's position in his re-election bid.

The vice president received standing ovations while promising to defend law enforcement and to quickly fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court following her death.

Ginsburg, he said, "paved the way for women in the law."

"As we rightly honor her life of service, the Constitution of the United States provides the president shall appoint a judge to the Supreme Court and I promise you come this Saturday, President Donald Trump will do his duty as we nominate a principled conservative woman," Pence said.

Following the event, Pence took a bus to Minneapolis for an event focused on law enforcement.

Pence did not mention comments Trump made to veteran journalist Bob Woodward, admitting he deliberately downplayed the risk of the coronavirus to the public. Instead, he memorialized the 200,000 people who have died since the pandemic hit the United States.

"Thefamilies that have suffered loss during the course of this pandemic have always been on our heartsand you're in our prayers," Pence said. "There's not a day that's gone by Ihaven't thought about families who lost loved ones."

The vice president has visited Wisconsin four times over the last month, and at least five times this year.

He wasin Janesvillelast week, La Crosse on Labor Day, Darien in August and Ripon in July. It's the third visit to Wisconsin this week by top officials in the Trump administration.

RELATED: Biden maintains lead over Trump in Wisconsin and two other northern battlegrounds in UW poll

Thursday's visit coincides with a $2 million ad buy by Republicans to make a play for Kind's western Wisconsin seat, which covers Eau Claire.

The Congressional Leadership Fund will begin airing ads on television and posting them online beginning Friday.

Kind's GOP opponent, Derrick Van Orden, attended Pence's event, talking to attendees alongside U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany beforehand.

Pence's event was held at a time coronavirus cases are skyrocketing in Wisconsin and hospitalizations are at a record high. Crowd members and staff all wore masks inside the event and seating was spaced out.

Tiffany, who spoke to the crowd beforehand, said he has a good friend in intensive care with a coronavirus infection. He credited the Trump administration for approving therepurposed Ebola treatment Remdesivir, which he said his friend would have died without.

Ahead of the event, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwinripped the Trump administration's response to the pandemic and cited three areas of failure. She said the administration should have been "straight with the American people," created enforceable pandemic work standards on an emergency basisand unleashed "the full potential of the defense production act."

"Rather than saying, hey mayors, it's your responsibility, hey hospitals, it's your responsibility, hey states, it's your responsibility. And they're bidding against each other, being price gouged and it has done nothing to stem the short supply," she told reporters.

"If we could have right from the get-goreduced the transmission and then be at such a low number where every new case could be contact traced, quarantined, isolated, we wouldn't be where we are now," Baldwin said.

"In Wisconsin this past week we have had four of our record high days of positive tests. Four! We have more people in the hospital today in September, then we have at any other point in this pandemic," Baldwin said."If you hear me being quite emotional about it it's because I feel President Trump has been an utter failure in terms of this leadership on the pandemic."

Bill Glauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Molly Beckat molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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Mike Pence rallies swing district voters in 4th recent campaign trip to Wisconsin - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have had their first debate matchup; next, their vice presidential nominees will have the chance.

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) will face off in the next 2020 debate on October 7, with Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, moderating.

The debate will air live on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, NBC, and PBS Utah from 9 to 10:30 pm ET from the University of Utahs Nancy Peery Marriott Auditorium in Salt Lake City, where there will be a small live audience of students. (Thats 8-9:30 pm CT, 7-8:30 pm MT, and 6-7:30 pm PT.) Debate organizers have secured the Cleveland Clinic as a health adviser to ensure that the debates can continue safely amid the pandemic.

Vice presidential debates havent historically attracted much fanfare, drawing much lower viewership than presidential debates. But Democrats are hoping that Harris a former San Francisco district attorney who earned a reputation for being a strong debater during the Democratic primaries and who is known for her incisive style of questioning witnesses during congressional hearings will go on the attack.

Her most notable debate performance during the primaries was when she criticized Biden, now her running mate, for opposing mandatory school busing during the 1970s, which she argued created an obstacle to desegregation efforts. Harris, as the most junior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also famously grilled Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018 regarding his stance on abortion and about whether he had inappropriately discussed the Mueller investigation with Trumps personal attorney.

In preparation for the upcoming debate, Harris reportedly has been practicing with former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who has been playing the role of Pence in mock debates.

Pence, for his part, has enlisted the help of former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who served at the same time that Pence was governor of Indiana, the Washington Post reported. Page, the moderator, hasnt announced debate topics yet, but Pence, as the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, will likely be called on to answer for his role in failing to prevent the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans amid the pandemic. He recently told the public to anticipate that cases will rise in the days ahead, predicting another surge.

Pence has faced criticism over his handling of the pandemic even from within his own camp: Olivia Troye, his former top aide on the coronavirus task force, went so far as to endorse Biden publicly, joining the group Republican Voters Against Trump.

There will also be two more presidential debates on October 15 and 22 in Miami, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee, respectively. C-SPAN editor Steve Scully will moderate the Miami debate, and NBC anchor Kristen Welker has been selected to do so in Tennessee.

With just weeks to go before the November 3 election, Biden remains ahead in the polls, besting Trump nationally by a margin of about 7 points on average, according to FiveThirtyEight. He also appears to be carrying a narrower lead in critical swing states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona. At this point, it doesnt seem like those polls will move significantly ahead of Election Day given that the biggest crises facing Americans a pandemic that shows no sign of slowing down, an economic downturn, and a national reckoning over race arent going away anytime soon.

It remains to be seen how much or little the Tuesday night debate and the three remaining shift those numbers.

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When is the next 2020 debate? Susan Page will moderate the vice presidential debate on October 7 - Vox.com