A week after the fiery debate between US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Vice President Mike Pence and Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, face off in Salt Lake City, for their first and only debate of this election cycle.

The debate will be divided into nine 10-minute segments and last a total of 90 minutes. It is being moderated by Susan Page, the Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. She’s the first print journalist to moderate a televised presidential or vice presidential debate since 1976.

The candidates are debating 12 feet apart from each other and with plexiglass between them in order to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission.

The pandemic was the first topic of discussion and Harris said, “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”

Pence fired back by saying that Biden plagiarized the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response.

“The American people have had to sacrifice far too much because of the incompetence of this administration,” Harris shot at the vice president as he defended the administration’s record on coronavirus.

On the question of whether she will take a coronavirus vaccine, Harris said, "If the public health professionals — if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us to take it, I'll be the first in line to take it ... If Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I'm not taking it."

Pence was asked about the White House’s choice to hold an event at the Rose Garden in which Trump announced his nominee for the Supreme Court, and replied by praising the American people’s resilience and sacrifices. “The work of the president of the United State goes on,” Pence said.

On foreign policy, Harris accused Trump of having “embraced dictators around the world,” and of having sided with Russia over American intelligence.

“America’s intelligence community told us Russia interfered in the election in 2016,” she said. “But Donald Trump prefers to take the word of Vladimir Putin over word of the US intelligence community”.

Pence in turn discussed the Trump administration’s foreign policy record: Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, demanding more from NATO, and destroying the ISIS caliphate.

“America is safer, our allies are safer,” he said.

Watch Pence’s remarks on Trump’s foreign policy: