Visual Studio Code – Why do I get "SyntaxError: Unexpected token '.' along with /ms-vscode.js-debug/src/bootloader.js:8" in VS Code 1.77 with NodeJS versions <= 12?

I’ve seen this error in several Stack Overflow posts, but none of them are quite like this, nor have they help. Every time I try to run my program I see this:

/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/ms-vscode.js-debug/src/bootloader.js:8
`+r)),e.removeListener("error",er),e.destroy()}});var Rs=V((Vu,Cs)=>{"use strict";var xa=Object.create,pt=Object.defineProperty,ba=Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptor,Ss=Object.getOwnPropertyNames,va=Object.getPrototypeOf,Sa=Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty,Ea=(e,t)=>function(){return t||(0,e[Ss(e)[0]])((t={exports:{}}).exports,t),t.exports},Ta=(e,t)=>{for(var r in t)pt(e,r,{get:t[r],enumerable:!0})},Es=(e,t,r,n)=>{if(t&&typeof t=="object"||typeof t=="function")for(let s of Ss(t))!Sa.call(e,s)&&s!==r&&pt(e,s,{get:()=>t[s],enumerable:!(n=ba(t,s))||n.enumerable});return e},Ca=(e,t,r)=>(r=e!=null?xa(va(e)):{},Es(t||!e||!e.__esModule?pt(r,"default",{value:e,enumerable:!0}):r,e)),Ra=e=>Es(pt({},"__esModule",{value:!0}),e),Aa=Ea({"node_modules/request-light/lib/node/main.js"(e){(()=>{var t={46:(i,a)=>{"use strict";Object.defineProperty(a,"__esModule",{value:!0}),a.default=function(l,f,{signal:c}={}){return new

SyntaxError: Unexpected token '.'
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:895:18)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:995:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:815:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:727:14)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:852:19)
    at Module._preloadModules (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1147:12)
    at loadPreloadModules (internal/bootstrap/pre_execution.js:443:5)
    at prepareMainThreadExecution (internal/bootstrap/pre_execution.js:62:3)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:7:1
Process exited with code 1

It looks like it’s in the extension that the problem is encountered.

/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/ms-vscode.js-debug/src/bootloader.js:8

Tried several NodeJS versions. My current working version is 12.13.1.