Vice presidential contenders Kaine, Pence blast Trump, Clinton at debate

FARMVILLE, VA: Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence quickly launched attacks on presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Wednesday at a debate between the two vice presidential contenders.



The two candidates wasted no time in launching broadsides against Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton in the opening minutes of their 90-minute debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

"Donald Trump always puts himself first," Kaine, a US senator from Virginia, said, pointing out that when Trump began his presidential campaign last year he called "Mexicans rapists and criminals" and had also voiced the "outrageous lie" that Democratic President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.



Pence, the governor of Indiana, shot back at Kaine that he and Clinton "would know a lot about an insult-driven campaign" and then accused Clinton, the former US secretary of state, of bungling foreign policy with large sections of the Middle East "literally spinning out of control."



The debate was the only one featuring the vice presidential contenders and came as Clinton has edged ahead of Trump in national opinion polls and in some Nov. 8 battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.