Jessica Tarlov admits DNC was 'missed opportunity' for party to address urban violence, riots

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Was it a mistake for Democrats to not address rising violence in US cities at the DNC?

Fox News contributors Katie Pavlich and Jessica Tarlov debate the tone of the Democratic National Convention.

Democrats are fighting for the soul of the U.S. and are clearly the "empathetic party" in the 2020 election, Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov argued on "The Story" Friday.

Tarlov conceded to host Martha MacCallum that this week's Democratic National Convention represented a "missed opportunity" for the party to address ongoing riots and violence in U.S. cities. However, she added that the election will come down to healthcare and the state of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

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"The contrast couldn’t be starker than listening to Joe Biden talk to the families of the 170,000 Americans who lost their lives versus Donald Trump, when asked about the COVID death toll, saying 'it is what it is,' which has become a catchphrase across all of the DNC with Michelle Obama most notably on Monday night using it," she said.

"So, I think that Joe Biden did a great job with the contrast of light versus darkness ... I think that we know who is really fighting for the soul of this nation and is the empathetic party, which is the Democrats."

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Tarlov's fellow Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich disagreed, arguing that Democrats didn't exhibit empathy in their responses to either the pandemic or the riot.

"It is not empathetic to ignore rioting and burning down of businesses of the very people that Democrats claim to be standing up for, like immigrants in Minneapolis," she said. "For example, an African immigrant who came here, saved all of his money -- was a firefighter in Minneapolis -- to open a sports bar, it was closed for COVID-19 and he was about about to reopen it, and then it got burned down and Democrats didn't have anything to say about that.

"It's about the Ethiopian immigrant who owned a furniture store in Minneapolis that Democrats claim to be standing up for, but are completely ignoring on this issue," Pavlich added. "Yes, COVID is at the top of mind of all Americans, but so is law and order and safety, and for Democrats just to completely ignore it and then stand on the soapbox of empathy doesn’t really add up when it comes to policy positions and what they would actually do.

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"And in terms of dealing with the pandemic, you know, last night, Joe Biden talked all about how it doesn’t have to be this way, he would have handle the pandemic differently, but didn’t give any details, and when he said that he would engage in PPE [personal protective equipment] and testing -- well, the Trump Administration has done a lot of that," Pavlich continued.

"The testing is a little slower than it should be, but they created a test from scratch, pulled off a lot of government regulation to do it and Democrats are the party that likes to put a lot of regulation onto private industry when the Trump Administration has taken it off to fight this virus. And COVID isn’t just about fighting the virus, by the way. It’s about people's economic livelihood, it's about children’s education, it's about suicide rates, it's about overdoses. So, the president has talked about all of those things and doing more than one thing at once, and Joe Biden hasn’t addressed any of it in detail."