In fact, late night host Jimmy Kimmel said Wednesday night he thinks they are basically debating remotely.

Kimmel envisioned a debate between the two that would rival any Trump-Clinton debate:

ON THE ELECTION:

PENCE: “We will absolutely accept the results of the election"

TRUMP: “The whole thing is one big fix.”

ON RUSSIA HACKING:

PENCE: “There’s more and more evidence that implicates Russia."

TRUMP: “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC."

AD

ON ABORTION:

PENCE: “Donald Trump and I would never put forward legislation to punish women”

TRUMP: “There has to be some sort of punishment”

AD

ON SYRIA:

PENCE: “The United States of America should be prepare to assemble a military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime."

TRUMP: “He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree.”

ON EXPERIENCE:

PENCE: “I served 12 years in Congress.”

TRUMP: “I think people are tired of politicians.”

ON THE TAPE™

PENCE: “I don’t condone what he said and I spoke about against it.”

TRUMP: Trump apologized if he offended anyone but waved it off as “locker room banter."

And that's basically the story of the Republican presidential ticket, in under two minutes. Sometimes, over the past few months, Trump has come around to Pence's point of view; occasionally, has Pence come around to Trump's.

AD

But their relationship seemed especially strained after audio leaked of Trump making crude comments about women on a TV show in 2005. Pence said he can't defend the remarks, and in the Oct. 9 presidential debate, Trump said the two hadn't really talked it through. Come Wednesday, Pence was trying his best to try to support his nominee on whether to accept the election results -- even though that position wasn't actually his own.

Here are some more issues that have divided the GOP ticket:

Donald Trump's comments about women

What Trump said: "It was locker room banter." That's how Trump has defended 2005 audio of him appearing to brag about kissing, groping and advancing on married women.

AD

AD

What Pence said: In a statement Saturday, Pence didn't even try to come to Trump's rescue: "I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them."

Syria

What Pence said: In the vice presidential debate Oct. 3, pence said the United States should consider striking a key Russian military ally, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

“The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength,” Pence said. “The United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime."

What Trump said: "He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree," Trump said when asked about the policies in Sunday's presidential debate.

Tax returns

What Trump said: Trump began 2016 by saying aides were at work preparing his tax returns for public release. Later, he said he couldn't release them because he was being audited by the IRS, and his lawyers had advised against it. Even after news from the New York Times that Trump could have gone 18 years without paying federal income taxes, Trump has given no indication he'll release them.

AD

AD

What Pence said: On Sept. 8, he released 10 years of tax returns. "These tax returns clearly show that Mike and Karen Pence have paid their taxes, supported worthy causes, and, unlike the Clintons, the Pences have not profited from their years in public service," Pence press secretary Marc Lotter said in a statement.

President Obama's birthplace

What Trump said: Trump was one of the leaders of a fringe movement to question whether Obama was really born in the United States and, thus, whether he could serve as president. The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson noted that Trump has never apologized or admitted error, only briefly saying in a press conference in September he believes Obama is born in the United States.

AD

What Pence said: He has never questioned that Obama was born in Hawaii.

Free trade

What Trump said: He's not a fan. His opposition to current and negotiated trade agreements is a cornerstone of his campaign.

What Pence has said: The opposite.

Then again, shortly after joining the ticket, Pence told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham he’s open to questioning “the wisdom” of free trade deals. "With the TPP, you know, it feels a little bit like Obamacare,” he said.

The Iraq War

What Trump has said: Despite all evidence to the contrary, Trump continues to say he opposed the invasion in Iraq before it happened, most recently at the debate with Clinton on Sept. 26:

AD

AD

CLINTON: Donald supported the invasion of Iraq. TRUMP: Wrong. CLINTON: That is absolutely proved over and over again. TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong.

What Pence has said: He voted to go to war in Iraq. After being picked as Trump’s running mate, he sidestepped a question by Fox News’s Sean Hannity about the invasion of Iraq: "I think that’s for historians to debate,” he said.

For what it's worth, Trump told CBS's Lesley Stahl in an interview in July that he "didn't care" about Pence's support for the war: "It's a long time ago. And he voted that way, and they were also misled."

The Affordable Care Act

Trump says he’s against it, and wants to replace it. So does Pence — but he signed on to a version of Medicaid expansion offered under it.

A Muslim immigration ban

Trump still stands by his plan to temporarily bar many Muslims from entering the United States, now with varying descriptions — though few details — on which nations would be affected by the ban, and exactly how it would work.

AD

AD

Meanwhile, Pence tweeted this months before he joined the ticket:

He hasn’t deleted it.

Abortion

What Trump has said: During a town hall interview in April, Trump — who, over the years, has been both a supporter and an opponent of abortion laws — said that there had to be “some form of punishment” for women who had abortions if they were banned nationwide.

What Pence has said: The office of the staunchly (and consistently) antiabortion governor released a statement weighing in on Trump's remarks well before he became Trump's running mate simply saying: “Governor Pence does not agree with the statement made by Donald Trump.”

Ted Cruz

What Pence said: Ahead of the critical Indiana primary in the spring, Pence endorsed the Texas senator's presidential bid (albeit with comments so halfhearted the statement became an instant classic of 2016's fastest-growing genre: the meh-endorsement).

What Trump said: Well. You know. The day after Cruz's convention non-endorsement speech in July, Trump decided it was time to relive his insistence that Cruz's father, Rafael, might have had some sort of ties to President John F. Kennedy's assassin, maybe.

AD

AD

What a difference a few months make: In September, Cruz endorsed Trump, and Trump accepted it. Cruz was one of Trump's only defenders after his widely panned debate performance against Clinton.

Gay rights

What Trump said: "As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology," Trump said during his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. After the audience applauded, he added: "I must say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you." He also said, during the controversy over North Carolina's law that said people were only permitted access to the gender-specific bathroom that corresponded to the gender they were born with, that people should "use the bathroom they feel is appropriate."

AD

What Pence has said: Pence doesn't disagree with Trump that gay people shouldn't be targeted because of their sexual orientation. But to the gay community, he is the face of state laws they think are designed to discriminate against them, signing a controversial religious freedom bill in 2015. Convergence note: Both he and Trump have said they are personally opposed to same-sex marriage, but they say states should be able to make their own decisions about LGBTQ laws.

NATO

What Trump said, when asked in July if NATO member states could count on help from the United States if they were attacked: "Have they fulfilled their obligations to us? If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes," he said, in an interview with the New York Times, referring to any nations who have not made payments they are obligated to by treaty. And if not? "Well, I’m not saying if not. I’m saying, right now there are many countries that have not fulfilled their obligations to us."

AD

The implication that, as president, Trump might put conditions on U.S. assistance sparked alarm on both sides of the Atlantic.

What Pence said: That what Trump was trying to say was "America will stand by our allies. We'll uphold our treaty obligations, including the mutual defense alliance that is NATO. ... America keeps its word, and you can tell Donald Trump keeps his word," he told PBS, calling the issue of compensation "a separate question."

What Trump said a few days later: The exact same thing he'd said before, only more so. "NATO's fine. But they gotta pay. They gotta pay," he told supporters at a North Carolina rally, adding that the United States needed to apply more pressure on its allies. If it did, he predicted, "... they'll pay and they'll all pay probably — and if they don't pay, you walk! And that's okay, too. That's the way it works, folks. That's the way it works."

The media

What Trump said: That reporters are, among other things, "scum." And that a string of news organizations, including this one, should not be accredited to cover his campaign. (The Trump campaign has since lifted its ban on news organizations.)

What Pence said (after a Post reporter was denied entry to a rally of his in Wisconsin in July): " … We're going to have those conversations internally, and I fully expect in the next 100 days we're going to continue to be available to the media, whether they're fair or unfair, and we're going to take our case to the American people directly," he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. (Back in Indiana, he also wanted to launch a government-run news service that amid an outcry, he scrapped.)

What Trump said after that: He mused publicly, more than once, that he should probably ban other news outlets, too. And he kept referring to reporters as "horrible people," "the worst," etc. The campaign also launched a new "Media Bias of the Day" message, telling supporters it planned to "begin calling out biased and unfair coverage" and that it welcomed "your suggestions for those deserving increased scrutiny."

The campaign press ban may be over, but Trump has actually been keeping even more news organizations at arms' length: he has not held a press conference since July.

The Khans

What Trump said: Following Khizr Khan's emotional remarks at July's Democratic National Convention about his son, an Army captain who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq, Trump said to ABC: "Did Hillary’s scriptwriters write [Khan's speech]?" Then, later, to MSNBC: “His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me, but plenty of people have written that.” And so on.

What Pence said, in a statement: "Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American."

What Trump said after that: He doubled down on his attacks on the Khan family in the days that followed, kicking off what some analysts referred to as perhaps the worst three-day stretch of his campaign."I was viciously attacked on the stage," Trump told the Post in August, "and I have a right to answer back."

Name-calling

What Pence said: "I don’t think name-calling has any place in public life," he told Hewitt late last month.

What Trump said: What hasn't he said? There's too much to link to, because we're talking about virtually every speech and interview since the start of his campaign. Here's a shortlist of some of the ways he's described Clinton: (i.e., "Crooked Hillary." "Founder of ISIS." "The devil").

John McCain

What Trump said about whether he would endorse the Arizona senator, who's facing a tough reelection campaign: “I’ve never been there with John McCain because I’ve always felt that he should have done a much better job for the vets,” Trump told The Washington Post's Philip Rucker on Aug. 2.

What Pence (who met with McCain after Trump's comments) said, in a clip quickly posted by the senator's campaign: "Senator McCain has provided the kind of leadership throughout his career that has stood up for our military, stood up for a strong America."

What Trump said after that: He endorsed McCain.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan

What Trump said: "I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country. We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet," Trump told Rucker.

What Pence said, roughly 48 hours later: "I strongly support Paul Ryan, strongly endorse his reelection."

What Trump said after that: He somewhat reluctantly endorsed Ryan.

This list is a work in progress. When the time comes to add more — and it will — we'll update it.

Save