2016 The 12 most interesting moments of the VP debate Kaine attacks and interrupts as Pence casts the Democrats as the ticket of insults.

FARMVILLE, Va. — Those assuming the vice presidential debate would be a sleepy affair got a surprise Tuesday night as Mike Pence and Tim Kaine quickly locked horns in one confrontation after another on everything from criminal justice reform to Social Security privatization.

The two came into the night with different aims. Kaine, with the wind at his back after Hillary Clinton’s dominant first debate performance, was looking to keep the campaign’s momentum. Pence was aiming to steady the ship at a critical stretch, and perhaps present Donald Trump with a playbook on how best to go after Clinton in their final two debates.


Here’s a look at the stand-out moments.

1. Kaine comes out swinging

Tim Kaine immediately launched an attack, aiming to put Mike Pence on the defensive over Donald Trump’s temperament and recent controversies.

“We have a son deployed overseas in the Marine Corps right now,” Kaine said. “We trust Hillary Clinton as president and commander in chief, but the thought of Donald Trump as commander in chief scares us to death.”

Pence, whose son Michael is also a Marine, let the attack slide without response.

Kaine kept up the onslaught, bringing up Trump’s speech in which he announced his candidacy calling illegal immigrants “rapists” and “criminals.” Kaine also slammed Trump for the “discredited and really outrageous lie” that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

“You and Hillary Clinton would know a lot about an insult-driven campaign,” Pence shot back.

But Kaine wasn’t done.

2. Kaine the interruptor

As Pence began indicting Clinton’s foreign policy and mentioned Russian aggression, Kaine jumped in: “You love Russia.” He was referencing Trump’s and Pence’s statements that Russian president Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than Obama.

“The campaign of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine has been an avalanche of insults,” Pence said.

When Pence pivoted to talking about Trump’s “business acumen,” Kaine cut in again: “And paid a few taxes and lost $1 billion a year.”

Pence moved on to discussing the Clinton Foundation. Again, Kaine jumped in: “You are Donald Trump's apprentice.”

“Senator,” Pence said, “I think it’s still my time.”

3. Pence laughs off Kaine’s attacks

Kaine’s first “Apprentice” reference was not his last. And Pence apparently found the canned, awkwardly-delivered one-liners amusing.

“Do you want a you're hired president in Hillary Clinton or a you're fired president in Donald Trump?” Kaine asked as he described the ticket’s economic plans.

“Well, first, let me say I appreciated the ‘You're hired,' 'You're fired' thing,” Pence said wryly after chuckling silently. “You used that a lot and I think your running mate used a lot of pre-done lines.”

4. Pence forced to address Trump’s taxes

For the first time since a bombshell New York Times report that revealed Trump lost nearly a billion dollars in the mid-1990s and may have gone nearly two decades without paying federal income taxes, Pence was forced to respond to the controversy.

After dodging at first, Pence addressed the issue.

“Well, this is probably the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Senator Kaine,” Pence said. “And God bless you for it, career public servants, that's great. Donald Trump is a businessman, not a career politician. He actually built a business.”

As Kaine fired back, Pence asked if Kaine, too, takes advantages of the deductions available to him. That’s the same line the Trump campaign has been using: Describing Trump's use of the tax code as lawful and a sign of his business acumen.

5. Kaine looks to put daylight between Trump and Pence

Kaine was not going to let the tax conversation end without noting that, while Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns, the Republican nominee forced his running mate to share his own.

“Governor Pence had to give Donald Trump his tax returns to show that he was qualified to be vice president,” Kaine said. “Donald Trump must give the American public his tax returns to show that he's qualified to be president and he's breaking his promise.”

Pence responded that Trump has filed financial disclosure forms, and added that “the American people can review that.”

6. Kaine goes scorched earth on Trump

Kaine trotted out some of Trump’s most controversial comments in one fell swoop, hitting Trump for his comments about undocumented immigrants, a federal judge of Mexican descent, Sen. John McCain and for calling women “slobs pigs, dogs, disgusting,” among other statements.

“If you want to have a society where people are respected and respect laws, you can't have somebody at the top who demeans every group that he talks about,” Kaine said. “I cannot believe that Governor Pence will defend the insult-driven campaign that Donald Trump has run."

7. Pence: Trump insulting people? Never!

Pence sought to turn the tables, saying it was not Trump making the insults — it’s Clinton.

“Ours is an insult-driven campaign?” Pence asked incredulously.

He said Trump’s controversial comments — “if Donald Trump had said all the things he said in the way you said he said them” — are nothing compared to Clinton’s comment that “half”of Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.” Clinton has since said she regretted saying half.

Pence called the deplorables comment “extraordinary.”

Kaine fired back with his own disbelief, adding another to the list of Trump’s insults: his recent controversy involved insulting the former Miss Universe Alicia Machado for gaining weight after winning the competition.

8. Pence on mass deportation: “Nonsense!”

One of the key elements of Trump’s campaign — his promise, since muddled, to deport everyone here illegally — is “nonsense,” according to Pence.

After Kaine painted a dark picture of a roaming “deportation force” — a phrase used by Trump himself — that separates families and drives immigrants from the country, Pence jumped in to interrupt.

“That’s nonsense,” Pence said.

“Senator, we have a deportation force, it’s called I.C.E,” Pence said. But when Kaine interjected again with notion of deporting the estimated 16 million people in the United States illegally, Pence repeated the phrase.

“Senator,” he said forcefully, “that’s nonsense.”

Pence did not clarify which undocumented immigrants would be permitted to remain in the United States.

9. Kaine accuses Trump of having a Mount Rushmore of Evil

Trump looks up to a Mount Rushmore of dictators, Kaine declared, accusing the GOP nominee of looking up to North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He used the insult as the kicker to his declaration that Trump “trash talks the military.”

“Come on,” Pence said as Kaine ticked off the dictators.

Pence looked dismissively at Kaine when Quijano turned the stage to him.

“Did you work on that one a long time?” Pence asked. “Because that had a lot of creative lines in it.”

“I'll see if you can defend any of it,” Kaine said.

10. Quijano: “Please!”

Elaine Quijano, the debate’s moderator, finally had enough of the frequent back-and-forth interrupting. When Kaine and Pence bickered over whether or not Clinton’s email server would have led to a court martial in the Marine Corps, Quijano, with exasperation, cut in: “Gentlemen, Sen. Kaine, Gov. Pence, please!”

The moment was set up to be a big one for Pence, as he sought to pivot from a discussion of cyber security to Clinton’s use of a private email server as Secretary of State. But Pence was given just 30 seconds to make the case — enough to raise Kaine’s ire.

Kaine defended Clinton by pointing out that the director of the FBI opted not to indict Clinton. Quijano worked repeatedly to pivot to a question about Syria, and finally succeeded.

11. Kaine wants Pence to defend Trump but Quijano moves on

Kaine continued his drumbeat of attacks on Trump, and declared that even Pence is ill at ease defending the Republican nominee. After saying Trump’s finger on the nuclear codes could trigger catastrophe, Pence angrily said it was out of line.

“That was even beneath you,” Pence said. “That was pretty low.”

Kaine saw his opening: “Six times tonight I have said to Governor Pence I can't imagine how you can defend your running mate's position on one issue after the next and in all six cases he's refused defend.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Pence said, adding later: “I’m happy to defend him.”

He said many of Kaine’s statements about Trump, including his declaration that Trump wants more countries to have nuclear weapons, were false.

But Quijano moved on, denying viewers of a point by point assessment of Trump's statements by Pence.

12. Pence: Trump isn’t always polished

After Kaine slammed Trump for saying women who have an abortion should be punished — a comment Trump’s campaign quickly walked back — Pence declared that he and Trump would never support such a move. Kaine pressed Pence on Trump’s comment.

For the first time all night, Pence finally seemed to allow that Trump has made a mistake, albeit only a semantic one.

“He's not a polished politician like and you Hillary Clinton,”

The segment followed one on the men’s faith, and Kaine still had faith on the mind. He jumped in with a paraphrase of a New Testament verse: "From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Trump’s comments, while off the cuff, represented his true position, Kaine argued.

He again repeated Trump’s declaration that John McCain is not a war hero and that illegal immigrants from Mexico include “rapists and criminals.”

“Senator,” Pence responded. “You whipped out that Mexican thing again. "

"There are criminal aliens," Pence said. "And he said many of them are good people. You keep leaving that out of your quote. If you want to go there, I'll go there.”