Live Updates
President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden faced off tonight during the last 2020 presidential debate, where they discussed the coronavirus pandemic, foreign interference in US elections, immigration and more.
If you are just tuning in, here are some key lines and moments from the night:
Living under the coronavirus pandemic
Health care
Foreign interference in US elections
Children separated from their parents at the border
Relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
How New York state responded to the pandemic
Whether to shut down the US economy again due to Covid-19
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden just wrapped up their second and final presidential debate of the 2020 election.
We want to know what you thought about it.
Tell us what impact it had on you, using the form below.
A CNN instant poll of debate watchers finds that 53% of the watchers thought Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the final presidential debate. Meanwhile, 39% said Donald Trump emerged a winner.
Keep in mind: The poll represents a sample set of debate watchers and is not representative of the country overall. In this set of debate watchers, about 32% of people were Democratic, 31% were Republicans and the rest were independent.
Arguably, the debate did not do much to change any candidate’s preferences. Before the debate, among this group, Biden had a 55% favorable rating. It inched up to 56% after the debate. President Trump had a 42% favorable rating before the debate and it dropped to 41% after the debate.
Watchers were also asked if they thought the candidates’ attacks on each other were fair. About 73% said Biden’s attacks on Trump were fair. Only 26% said they weren’t fair.
In contrast, 50% said Trump’s attacks on Biden were fair but 49% of debate watchers said they were not fair.
“To me, that suggests the race leaves this debate as it entered it, which right now, as you know, is advantage Biden,” CNN’s David Chalian reports.
More on the poll: The CNN post-debate poll was conducted by SSRS by telephone and includes interviews with 585 registered voters who watched the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Results among debate-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.
Respondents were originally interviewed earlier this month either by telephone or online, and indicated they planned to watch the debate and would be willing to be re-interviewed when it was over. Respondents initially reached online are members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative probability-based panel.
Watch CNN’s David Chalian break down the results:
At the end of tonight’s final presidential debate, President Trump kept a similar lead in speaking time he maintained throughout the debate, speaking for approximately three more minutes than former Vice President Joe Biden.
The Biden campaign said it feels Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden successfully “flipped the script” on President Trump during tonight’s debate as he tried to make issue of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Biden instead turned the focus to the President’s taxes – a moment the campaign feels where he delivered well.
“Biden put him on the defensive with his answers about Trump’s taxes,” a Biden campaign adviser said. “Completely flipped the script on him.”
Biden also capped off this section of the debate arguing the election isn’t about the two candidates’ families but instead about the American family – a key message the campaign had hoped he would drive home in this debate.
This was also one of those moments where Biden looked directly to camera, a strategy he leaned into more heavily after his first debate as his advisers have felt it is a way to connect with voters.
As Joe Biden was boarding his flight from Nashville to Wilmington, he briefly took a few questions from the press. Asked how he believes the debate went, Biden said, “Well, that’s for the public to judge. I felt good about it and I thought the moderator did a great job of making it run smoothly and so it was much…much more rational debate than the first one,” he said. “Got a chance to speak to the American public more, so thank you all very much.”
On a call with reporters following tonight’s debate, the Trump campaign unsurprisingly claimed victory.
“Joe Biden has been a Washington politician for almost 50 years and now he says he’ll get it right. The President nailed it tonight. Joe Biden is all talk and no action. President Trump won this debate in a blowout, and it’s little wonder why Joe Biden doesn’t want to do anymore,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told those on the call.
CNN’s Jake Tapper responded to tonight’s presidential debate, saying President Trump had delivered a relatively normal performance, especially compared to the first debate which Tapper described at the time as a “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”
“It was definitely a more normal debate,” said Tapper, speaking just moments after the second and final presidential debate had concluded. “President Trump behaved more like a regular person might theoretically.”
“It’s fair to say that Trump supporters and Republican office holders can relax for the night. They can exhale,” continued Tapper. “He didn’t set himself on fire tonight like he did at the first debate.”
“[But] I mean, he did lie like Pinocchio,” added Tapper, referring to the fictional literary character whose nose grew each time he told another falsehood.
Tapper also said the President had even managed to land few clean hits on former vice president Joe Biden on topics including the 1994 crime bill, and Biden’s record as a career politician.
Watch the moment:
In a calmer presidential debate, President Trump repeatedly talked about red states and blue states, CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip said.
“I think the President really walked back into that trap, because if you listen to him day-to-day, like we all do, you hear the same content… It happened on the debate stage in a calmer tone, but it still isn’t bridging the gap with the voters in the middle,” Phillip said.
The President “kept doing something that I think Joe Biden actually tried to exploit, which is dividing the country into red states and blue states,” she added.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden gave a message of unity.
“If you watch the ads that are on television for the Biden campaign right now, the message right now is not about, you know, coronavirus. It’s not about fracking. It’s not about any of those things. It’s about unity. It’s about bringing the country together,” Phillips said.
Former vice president Joe Biden said in tonight’s debate: “The expectation is we’ll have another 200,000 Americans dead the time between now and the end of the year.”
Facts First: This needs context. One study published in October in the medical journal JAMA showed that there were more than 225,000 excess deaths in a five-month period at the start of the year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, compared to past years. (Excess deaths are the number of deaths beyond what historic numbers of deaths have been in a similar time period.) The study then predicted that the total number of excess deaths would likely be greater than 400,000. But as of Thursday evening, 223,000 Americans have lost their lives to Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
These are merely projections. The latest forecast from an influential coronavirus model projects about 315,000 deaths by December 31. That’s about 92,000 additional American lives lost beyond the current death toll. There is a range of predicted deaths in this model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The worst-case scenario is if US social distancing mandates are eased. The model projects fewer deaths if everyone wears masks.
While attacking the 1994 crime bill that Joe Biden supported, President Trump claimed that Biden called the Black community “super predators.”
In 1994, Trump said, the Black community was “called, and he called them ‘super predators’ and he said that. He said it.”
Facts First: This is false. Biden never called Blacks “super predators.”
Then-first lady Hillary Clinton used the term “super predators” in a 1996 speech in New Hampshire in support of the 1994 crime bill. Biden did warn in a 1993 speech of “predators on our streets” who were “beyond the pale” in support of the crime bill. The bill itself has come under heavy criticism in recent years for being among the policies that led to mass incarceration, disproportionately affecting Black men.
But Biden himself rejected the theory of super predators.
In a 1997 hearing arguing that most youths in the justice system weren’t violent, Biden said most youth weren’t “super predators.”
“In 1994, there were about 1.5 million juvenile delinquency cases,” Biden said then. “Less than 10% of those cases involved violent crimes. So when we talk about the juvenile justice system, we have to remember that most of the youth involved in the system are not the so-called ‘super predators.’ ”
In attacking Joe Biden over his handling of the H1N1 epidemic, President Trump said Biden had handled the epidemic poorly for the Obama administration and it was “a total disaster.”
“And frankly, he ran the H1N1 swine flu and it was a total disaster. Far less lethal, but it was a total disaster,” Trump said. “Had that had this kind of numbers, 700,000 people would be dead right now, but it was a far less lethal disease.”
Facts First: This claim is misleading and needs context. The swine flu killed an estimated 12,500 Americans and Trump praised the Obama administration’s early handling of it.
Trump said the Obama administration’s handling of the swine flu was “a total disaster,” claiming 700,000 would have died if the swine flu had been more deadly. Trump’s claim appears to be citing an article from the Wall Street Journal opinion page and not an academic study.
In 2009, Trump actually praised the Obama administration’s early handling of the swine flu outbreak.
“It’s going to be handled,” Trump said on Fox News. “It’s going to come. It’s going to be bad. And maybe it will be worse than the normal flu seasons. And it’s going to go away. I think it is being handled fine. I think the words are right.”
Later in the interview, Trump downplayed the swine flu and referenced the false assertion that vaccines might cause autism (there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism).
“It’s called the flu,” Trump said. “Have you had the flu many times, Neil (Cavuto)? Probably. You know, we all have.”
Joe Biden claimed President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus or prevent the resulting economic downturn has left millions of people without jobs and health insurance.
“The fact is that he’s already cost the American people because of his terrible handling of the Covid virus and economic spillover. Ten million people have lost their private insurance,” Biden said.
Facts first: Biden’s claim needs context.
The source of the statistic, Biden’s campaign said, is a July Urban Institute study that estimated 10.1 million people would lose coverage as a result of a Covid-related job loss in the last three quarters of 2020. However, Biden failed to mention that most would regain insurance elsewhere.
The study predicted that about 32% of the 10.1 million would switch to the employer-sponsored insurance of another family member. Another 28% would enroll in Medicaid, and 6% would sign up for other coverage, primarily on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, where many would receive federal premium subsidies.
Only about a third, or 3.5 million people, would be left uninsured, the study estimates.
However, the actual number of people who have lost their job-based coverage isn’t known. There are various estimates out there, and some early data indicate that some employers that furloughed workers continued to provide them with health insurance — at least in the first few months of the pandemic.
Echoing comments he made during last week’s town hall, President Trump claimed nobody has done more for the Black community than him, with the “possible exception” of Abraham Lincoln.
Facts First: This is false. It’s absurd to say Lincoln is a “possible” exception; emancipating enslaved people was obviously more important for Black Americans than anything Trump has done.
President Lyndon B. Johnson also signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, monumental bills whose impact dwarfed the impact of any legislation Trump has signed.
Joe Biden repeated his claim that President Trump wants to end the payroll tax that funds Social Security.
“If in fact he continues to withhold — his plan to withhold the tax on Social Security, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023. With no way to make up for it,” Biden said.
Facts First: This is not quite true. Trump signed an executive measure in August giving employers the ability to defer Social Security’s payroll taxes until the end of the year.
When he signed the action, the President said that if he wins reelection, he’ll push to terminate the levy in 2021. Asked by Democrats to assess the impact of eliminating the tax, the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary said it would deplete the Social Security trust fund within three years if there were no alternative source of revenue.
The White House has said that Trump was referring to forgiving the deferred amount, not canceling the levy. The Treasury Department has said that the executive measure will not harm the Social Security trust funds because the deferral is temporary, and the funds must be repaid.
Only Congress has the power to eliminate the payroll tax, either temporarily or permanently.
President Trump claimed that while he “sold tank busters to Ukraine,” the Obama administration sold “pillows and sheets.”
Facts First: Trump is being hyperbolic about the Obama administration. Obama did refuse to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, but he didn’t send mere pillows; he sent counter-mortar radars, armored Humvees and night vision devices, among other things.
You can read a full fact check here.
President Trump falsely claimed in tonight’s debate that Russia is meddling in the election to defeat him.
“About your thing last night, I knew all about that. And through John, who is – John Ratcliffe, who is fantastic, DNI,” Trump said, using the initials for Director of National Intelligence. “He said the one thing that’s common to both of them, they both want you to lose because there has been nobody tougher to Russia – between the sanctions – nobody tougher than me on Russia.”
Facts First: It’s false to suggest that Russia wants Trump to lose. In fact, senior US intelligence officials announced months ago that Russia is actively meddling in the election to hurt Biden.
The top US intelligence official for election security, William Evanina, announced in August that the Russian government is interfering in the 2020 election to hurt Biden’s candidacy, primarily by spreading disinformation about alleged “corruption” by Biden and his family regarding Ukraine.
Russia is also trying to “denigrate” Biden on social media, according to Evanina’s statement, and Facebook has already taken down Russian-backed fake accounts targeting liberal voters.
The Russian government also interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win, according to the US intelligence community. Trump has repeatedly rejected and questioned this finding, too.
CNN previously analyzed Trump’s claims that “there has been nobody tougher” as president on Russia than him. This is a false narrative. Trump’s administration has taken some tough steps against Russia, but Trump himself has rejected widely held US foreign policy views and aligned himself with the Kremlin on issues including Syria, NATO, election-meddling, and more.
They got the same question. But you couldn’t tell from their answers.
Asked what they would do to fight the disproportionate effects of chemical and fossil fuel pollution on communities of color, Joe Biden said he would ramp up regulations. President Trump suggested that the illnesses connected to living in the shadows of those refineries and plants was an economic boon to the afflicted families.
“The families we’re talking about are employed heavily and they’re making more money than they’ve ever made,” Trump said, pivoting hard to a favorite talking point. ‘“If you look at the kind of numbers that we produced for Hispanic or Black or Asian, it’s nine times greater, the percentage gained than it was under — in three years — than it was under 8 years of the two of them, to put it nicely,” he added – presumably referencing the unemployment numbers among minorities before the pandemic struck.
Biden spoke more fluently about the issue, which was familiar from the Democratic primary debates – and mocked Trump’s apparent ignorance.
“My response is those people live on what they call fence-lines. (Trump) doesn’t understand this,” Biden said. “They live near chemical plants, that in fact pollute, chemical plants and oil plants and refineries that pollute.”
Biden described growing up near Claymont, Delaware, in an area near the Delaware River with a glut of oil refineries.
“When my mom got in the car with the first frost, there would be an oil slick on the window,” Biden said. “That’s why so many people in my state were dying and getting cancer. The fact is the frontline communities, it doesn’t matter what you’re paying them. It matters how you’re keeping them safe.”
As an example of how he’s been tough on Russia, President Trump said he had gotten NATO member nations to increase their contributions to fund the alliance “to guard against Russia.”
“I’ve got the NATO countries to put up an extra $130 billion, going to $420 billion a year,” Trump said. “That’s to guard against Russia.”
Facts First: This is misleading. Trump was using actual figures but describing them inaccurately.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in November 2019 that non-US NATO members were expected to add a total of $130 billion to their defense budgets between 2016 and the end of 2020 — not $130 billion more per year. By the end of 2024, Stoltenberg has said, the total was expected to be $400 billion over 2016 levels.
However, the coronavirus pandemic might impact members’ spending plans. In an email in August, NATO spokesperson Peggy Beauplet referred CNN to the transcript of a Stoltenberg news conference in July where he encouraged members to continue to invest in defense but acknowledged, “Covid-19 has created serious economic problems. And it will impact the budget situation for all allies. And I understand that allies will be faced with some very difficult and demanding decisions.”
President Trump claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “dancing on the streets in Chinatown in San Francisco,” after his administration enacted restrictions on travel from China.
Facts First: This is false. Amid fears of anti-Asian bigotry related to the pandemic, Pelosi did go to San Francisco’s Chinatown in late February and did urge people to visit, saying it was safe. But contrary to Trump’s repeated claims, she did not call for a Chinatown parade, parties, a street fair or a march; she was not holding a street fair or a rally, and she was not dancing; she simply walked around, visited businesses and a temple, ate dim sum, and spoke to the media.
After her visit to Chinatown, Pelosi said, “we think it’s very safe to be in Chinatown and hope that others will come. It’s lovely here. The food is delicious, the shops are prospering, the parade was great. Walking tours continue. Please come and visit and enjoy Chinatown.”
So, while Pelosi did speak positively about Chinatown, she was not dancing on the streets.
President Trump claimed Thursday: “We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall.”
Facts first: This is false.
The Trump administration is nearing 400 miles of new border wall system, but has not surpassed that benchmark yet. The majority of construction is swapping out old, dilapidated design for new, enhanced wall system. Only a small share that’s been constructed has gone up where no wall previously existed.
Earlier Thursday, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the administration has “completed almost 400 miles of the new border wall system in high priority locations like San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, and the Rio Grande Valley Sectors.”
According to US Customs and Border Protection, 371 miles have been completed, as of Monday (Oct. 19). The administration has set a goal of 450 miles by the end of the year.
President Trump, who has long touted his own prosperity as a selling point, attacked Biden’s lifestyle, saying, “You have houses all over the place.”
Facts first: This is false.
While Biden has reported earning millions since leaving office, the former vice president doesn’t have houses “all over the place.” He owns two properties in Delaware.
Biden’s main home in Greenville, a suburb of Wilmington, was constructed on land he bought in 1996 for $350,000.
Biden bought a vacation home, also in Delaware, for $2.7 million in 2017 — after he finished his tenure as vice president and signed a lucrative book deal.
President Trump claimed a vaccine for Covid-19 is ready.
“We have a vaccine that’s coming, it’s ready,” said Trump.
Facts First: It’s false to say that a vaccine is currently ready. The FDA has not approved a vaccine for emergency use authorization.
There are currently four US clinical vaccine trials in Phase 3 with Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson.
Two clinical trials are paused with no indication when they will resume. AstraZeneca paused more than a month ago on Sept. 8 when a participant developed an unexplained illness. Johnson & Johnson paused on Oct. 12 for the same reason.
Pfizer and Moderna have both said they could apply for Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, but only if they have positive results from their Phase 3 clinical trials. Neither company says they know whether the results will be positive. Pfizer has said they could apply for emergency use authorization after the third week in November. Moderna has said they could apply in early December.
President Trump said during Thursday’s debate that he understands why parents of color fear that their children may be unfairly targeted by the police — but he didn’t expand on what he plans to do to solve that problem.
Both Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden were asked about “the talk” many parents of color have with their children about how to respond if they encounter police. The candidates were asked whether they understand why these parents fear that their children will be targeted for the color of their skin.
Trump continued to criticize Biden’s involvement in the 1994 crime bill before moving on to listing what he perceived as his accomplishments for the Black community.
“Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump. And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln … nobody has done what I’ve done,” Trump said, specifically citing criminal justice reform efforts, funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the establishment of Opportunity Zones.
The President later said he thinks he has “great relationships with all people.”
“I am the least racist person in this room,” Trump continued.
The President said he didn’t know what to say to Americans who are concerned with his rhetoric being racist.
“I don’t know what to say … It makes me sad,” Trump said.
Watch the moment:
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden were both asked a provocative and important question about race: Could they understand why Black parents give their children the “talk” about how to handle encounters with law enforcement?
Trump’s instinct was to insist —again — that he’s done more for African-Americans than any previous president since Abraham Lincoln — and to attack Biden for his record, including on a crime bill from the 1990s.
He didn’t specifically address the question.
But when pressed about his previous reluctance to condemn white supremacy by moderator Kristen Welker, who is herself Black, Trump made a bold claim.
“I’m the least racist person in this room,” Trump said.
Biden, meanwhile, sought to cast Trump as stoking racial divisions, one of the driving arguments of his entire campaign.
“Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history,” he said, making reference to Trump’s previous claim. “This guy has a dog whistle as big as a fog horn.”
The candidates’ responses were designed less to convince Black voters that either man would be better for them than to convince White voters that Trump is or is not racist. It’s one of the factors that has driven down Trump’s poll numbers among suburban women, who have been turned off by Trump’s constant stoking of divisions.
How Trump simply stating that he is not racist reverses that impression — given the ample evidence of him stoking racist conspiracies or fomenting racial divisions — isn’t clear.
President Trump slammed former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama for doing a “poor job” during their two terms in the White House.
As Biden talked about his policy plan on race and criminal justice reform, Trump accused the former vice president of doing “nothing” during his tenure in the White House.
“Why didn’t you do that four years ago, even less than that? You were the vice president. You keep talking about all these things you’re going to do. But you were there just a short time ago and you guys did nothing,” Trump added.
Watch the moment:
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday during the presidential debate that he understands why people of color fear that their children could be targeted by police because of the color of their skin.
The moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, described “the talk” that many Black and brown parents in America have with their children.
“It happens regardless of class and income — parents who feel they have no choice but to prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted, including by the police, for no reason other than the color of their skin,” Welker said.
“Mr. Vice President, in the next two minutes, I want you to speak directly to these families,” Welker continued. “Do you understand why these parents fear for their children?
“I do,” Biden responded, adding that his daughter is a social worker who has written about this topic.
He continued, “But a Black parent, no matter how wealthy or poor they are, has to teach their child when you’re walking down the street don’t have a hoodie on when you go across the street, making sure you in fact if you get pulled over, yes, sir, no, sir, hands on top of the wheel, because you are in fact the victim whether you’re a … person making $300,000 a year person or someone who’s on food stamps.”
“The fact of the matter is there is institutional racism in America,” Biden said.
Here’s the moment:
The candidates are being asked about the climate crisis and their campaign proposals on the topic.
Here’s a look at how they compare on this policy issue:
Joe Biden distanced himself from immigration policy during Barack Obama’s presidency on Thursday night, responding to a question about record deportation and a failure to pass immigration reform by saying he would do things differently.
Asked directly why voters should trust him with immigration after eight years under Obama, Biden answered bluntly: “Because we made a mistake. It took too long to get it right. I’ll be President of the United States, not Vice President of the United States.”
Obama’s immigration policies were criticized during his two terms in office, leading some immigration advocates to express concerns about how a Biden administration would handle the issue. And Biden’s poll numbers with Latino voters have been lower than past Democratic nominees.
Biden has tried to defend his former administration’s handling of immigration — even though the policy earned Obama the mocking moniker “deporter in chief” — making Thursday comments at the debate notable.
“And the fact is, I’ve made it very clear within 100 days I’m going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so-called dreamers, those DACA kids, they’re going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship,” Biden said. “The idea that they are being sent home by this guy and they want to do that is they’ve gone to a country they’ve never seen before.”
This is how the question played out:
President Trump was just asked about the Black Lives Matter movement, which has rallied for police reform across the US.
Here’s a look at how the two candidates compare on the issue of police reform:
President Trump claimed that Joe Biden received $3.5 million from Russia and that it “came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow, and it was the mayor of Moscow’s wife. You got $3.5 million. Your family got $3.5 million.”
Facts First: This is false. Trump was seemingly trying to raise an allegation previously made against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, but there’s no connection to Joe Biden. Hunter Biden also denies the allegation he received $3.5 million. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, told CNN that Hunter Biden was not an owner of the firm Senate Republicans allege received the $3.5 million payment in 2014.
A partisan investigation conducted by Senate Republicans, whose report was released this month, alleged that Elena Baturina, a Russian businesswoman and the wife of late Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, sent $3.5 million in 2014 to a firm called Rosemont Seneca Thornton, and that the payment was identified as a “consultancy agreement.” The report did not provide any further details about the transaction.
Hunter Biden was a co-founder and CEO of the investment firm Rosemont Seneca Advisors. But Mesires said Hunter Biden did not co-found Rosemont Seneca Thornton. It’s not clear what connection exists between Rosemont Seneca Advisors and Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Neither the Senate report nor Trump have provided any evidence that the payment was corrupt or that Hunter Biden committed any wrongdoing.
Asked what he would do if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act in November, Joe Biden touted his plan to build on the law, commonly known as Obamacare, by adding a public health insurance option.
It will “become Bidencare,” the former vice president said, suggesting he would seek to pass a beefed up version of the current law.
The nuts and bolts would be the same, but Biden said he wants to put more money into the system and add an option for people to buy-in to a Medicare-like program. A similar idea was originally part of the landmark health care bill passed in 2010, but it was cut out before Obama could sign it into law.
Biden also pushed back against the claim that he wanted to bring socialized medicine to the United States. Biden ran hard against “Medicare for All,” a progressive plan to insure every American as part of a government-run system, during the primary and called Trump’s claim “ridiculous.”
He also framed the public option as just that — an option for people who can’t get covered through work or choose not to purchase plans through private insurers.
The Medicare for All legislation was written by Biden’s primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Trump, when he jumped in, suggested that Biden wasn’t being honest about his plans and pointed, confusingly, to his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, saying she was more liberal than Sanders. Harris dropped her support of Medicare for All during the primary.
After some more back and forth, Biden tried to put a stamp on the conversation.
“People deserve to have affordable health care, period. Period, period, period,” he said. “And the Bidencare proposal will provide for that.”
Watch the moment:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He has also called on Congress to immediately grant citizenship to some undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.
At the first Democratic presidential debate in June 2019, Biden said that undocumented immigrants with no criminal records “should not be the focus of deportation.” In an interview with CNN in July 2019, Biden said he opposes decriminalizing crossing the border without documentation, something other candidates in the field have supported. “I think people should have to get in line, but if people are coming because they’re actually seeking asylum, they should have a chance to make their case,” Biden said.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump proposed the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border, and has made it a tenet of his immigration policy as President. After taking office, he issued an executive order suspending the entry of people from a number of Muslim-majority countries for 90 days; the order went through several iterations in court before it was upheld. The administration’s “zero tolerance” policy in 2018 — criminal prosecutions of adults who illegally crossed the border — resulted in thousands of family separations at the border as parents were detained.
Under a court order, the government must identify and reunify certain separated children. The President has proposed a merit-based immigration system, establishing a points-based system for green card holders and restricting sponsorship to spouses and minor children. Trump also officially ended Obama-era protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children, a decision that has now been taken to the Supreme Court. In June, the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s attempt to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Both presidential candidates were asked during Thursday’s debate to respond to the recent news that Iran and Russia obtained US voter registration information in an effort to interfere with the election.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said, “I made it clear, that any country, no matter who it is, that interferes in American elections will pay a price.”
“They will pay a price if I’m elected,” Biden continued, specifically referring to interference by China, Russia and Iran. “They’re interfering with American sovereignty. That’s what’s going on.”
Biden also accused Trump of not confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin over election interference efforts and brought up a recent report indicating that the President was warned by his national security adviser that Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was the target of Russian disinformation.
“And then you find out that everything that’s going on here about Russia is wanting to make sure that I do not get elected to the next president of the United States because they know I know them. And they know me. I don’t understand why this President isn’t willing to take on Putin when he’s actually paying bounties to killed American soldiers in Afghanistan,” Biden said.
Asked how he would deal with election interference in a second term, Trump deflected to discussing purported details about Biden’s son’s dealings with Ukraine.
The President also said he was informed of the recent election interference efforts, and underscored Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assessment that the efforts by Iran and Russia and were done to undermine Trump’s candidacy.
“I knew all about that,” Trump said.
Trump claimed Ratcliffe told him, “They both want you to lose, ‘cause there’s been nobody tougher to Russia.”
Here’s how the question played out:
Joe Biden attacked President Trump on comments he made over disinfectants and the coronavirus.
“What did the President say? He said don’t worry, it’s going to go away. Be gone by Easter. Don’t worry…Maybe inject bleach,” Biden said. “He said he was kidding when he said that but a lot of people thought it was serious.”
Trump replied that he “was kidding on that.”
Facts First: This is false. There was simply no indication that Trump was being anything less than serious when he made comments in April in which he wondered if it would be possible for people to inject disinfectants to fight Covid-19. The next day he claimed he was being sarcastic.
During an April 23 press briefing, Trump expressed interest in exploring the possibility of “injection inside or almost a cleaning” with disinfectants. Here’s what he said:
“[T]hen I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.”
The next day Trump claimed he was “asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.”
Read a longer fact check here.
President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden engaged in a heated debate about how more than 500 children should be reunited with their parents after they were separated at the US border over the past few years.
“The children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. We now have a strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand-new wall. You see the numbers. We let people in but they have to come in legally,” Trump said.
In terms of reuniting these children with their families, Trump said his administration has a plan and “we’re working on it very — we’re trying very hard.”
“But a lot of these kids come out without the parents. They come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs,” Trump said.
Biden fired back against Trump, calling the actions of his administration “criminal.”
“Five hundred plus kids came with parents. They separated them at the border to make it a disincentive to come to begin with. We’re tough. We’re really strong. And guess what. They cannot — it’s not coyotes didn’t bring them over. Their parents were with them. They got separated from their parents. And it makes us a laughing stock and violates every notion of who we are as a nation,” Biden said. “Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It’s criminal.”
Some context: Lawyers have not been able to reach the parents of 545 children who had been separated from their families by US border officials between 2017 and 2018, according to a court filing on Oct. 20.
Hundreds of parents may also have been deported without their children.
The filing from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union is part of an ongoing effort to identify and reunite families separated by the Trump administration, more than two years after the “zero tolerance” policy was created.
While a federal court order forced the reunification of many of those families, an explosive government watchdog report released last year revealed there could be thousands more who hadn’t previously been acknowledged by officials.
A court-appointed “steering committee” has tried to locate those families. As of October 20, the committee has attempted to reach the families of 1,030 children. Of those, the committee has not been able to reach the separated parents of 545 children, according to the court filing.
“Approximately two-thirds” of parents are believed to have been deported without their children, the filing adds.
Watch the exchange:
President Trump on Thursday night touted what he described as a “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“He’s talked about his good buddy who’s a thug, a thug, and he talks about how we’re better off. And they have much more capable missiles, able to reach US territory much more easily than they ever did before,” Biden said.
Biden said at the debate that he would only meet with the North Korean leader “on the condition that he would agree that he would be drawing down his nuclear capacity.”
“The Korean peninsula should be a nuclear-free zone,” Biden said.
Trump made history as the first sitting US leader to set foot in North Korea, and has held summit meetings with Kim Jong Un.
“Having a good relationship with leaders of other countries is a good thing,” Trump argued.
Biden shot back: “That’s like saying we had a good relationship with Hitler before he in fact invaded Europe, the rest of Europe. Come on.”
Watch the moment:
Joe Biden went after a frequent talking point from Donald Trump on Thursday, reminding the President that while he likes to attack Bernie Sanders’ plans for socialized medicine, he is not running against the Vermont Senator.
After a lengthy comment from Trump where he inaccurately accused Biden of backing “socialized medicine,” Biden fired back: “He’s very confused. He thinks he’s running against somebody else. He’s running against Joe Biden.”
Trump and Republicans often attempt to cast Biden as a radical by linking him to some of the leaders on the left of the Democratic Party, like Sanders. But Biden often fires back by noting that he defeated Sanders and other candidates during the primary.
“I beat all those other people because I disagree with them,” Biden said on Thursday night. “(It’s) Joe Biden he’s running against.”
Watch the exchange:
“If I get elected, I’m running as a proud Democrat, but I’m going to be an American president. I don’t see red states and blue states. What I see is American, United States,” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said after President Trump criticized the stimulus bill passed by the House Democrats as a “bailout of badly run, high-crime, Democrat… cities and states.”
“Every single state out there finds themselves in trouble. They’re going to start laying off, whether they’re red or blue — cops, firefighters, first responders, teachers — because they have to balance their budget,” Biden added.
Some context: Lawmakers have struggled for months to agree on another economic stimulus package to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more about where negotiations stand here.
Watch the moment:
Millions of Americans are still out of work. Many small businesses and major airlines are struggling to stay afloat. And states are still contending with massive budget gaps.
But those in need of relief from the coronavirus pandemic won’t see more money from the federal government anytime soon. Lawmakers have struggled for months to agree on another economic stimulus package to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In tonight’s debate, President Trump sought to lay blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Congress’ failure to pass another bill.
Pelosi said Thursday that a vote could still happen ahead of Election Day on a stimulus package, but signaled that work remains to get an agreement, write legislation and put it on the floor before Nov. 3.
“If we can get an agreement, I think we can, but again we are legislators. We understand how long things take. It is not just a question of us agreeing in a room. … it takes time,” Pelosi said. “It can happen. It is really up to them.”
In private conversations, Pelosi has indicated to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the chief negotiator for the White House, that it would be her goal to hold a vote ahead of Election Day though there are still plenty of obstacles to a bill getting through both chambers of Congress anytime soon.
One aide familiar with the discussions told CNN that if a deal was reached, the expectation is that “it would come to the floor ASAP” for a vote in the Democratically controlled House.
But getting a deal still remains up in the air. An overall agreement is still not finished and it may not be reached in time for Election Day. The deal would have to be finished by the weekend in order to get a vote on the floor next week and Pelosi said Thursday that major issues remain outstanding from unemployment insurance to liability protections.
Democrats and Republicans never got very close to a deal, but there was bipartisan support for a second round of stimulus checks, extending a boost to unemployment benefits, providing more support for small businesses and more money for schools.
Congress passed a $2.2 trillion relief package in March, known as the CARES Act, but most of those programs have expired.
Nearly an hour into tonight’s debate, President Trump maintains a nearly three minute lead in speaking time ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden.
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have very different views on how to fix what’s wrong with the nation’s health care system, and their differences are on display in tonight’s debate.
Trump has long said he would unveil a plan to replace Obamacare that would continue to protect those with pre-existing conditions. However, he has yet to do so.
Instead, his administration points to a range of health care measures aimed at reducing drug and insulin prices, improving kidney health, broadening access to alternatives to Obamacare plans and increasing hospital price transparency, among others. Some of these efforts have been enacted, but others remain in the proposal stage or have been blocked by the courts.
Biden, on the other hand, wants to broaden coverage and increase affordability by building on Obamacare. He would beef up the Affordable Care Act’s subsides to help more people purchase policies, and he would introduce a government-run public option of the Obamacare exchanges.
Read more about Trump’s proposed health care plan here and Biden’s here
The key differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump were distilled on Thursday night in a brief exchange about what middle class families are feeling right now.
Biden looked to pivot from a lengthy exchange where Trump attacked the business entanglements about Biden’s son, Hunter, by focusing on what American families are feeling.
“There’s a reason why he’s bringing up all this malarkey. There’s a reason for it. He doesn’t want to talk about the substantive issues. It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family. And your family’s hurting badly,” Biden said, looking directly into the camera.
The tactic clearly bothered Trump, but Biden pressed on by telling about families struggling to pay their mortgage, put new tires on their car or paying for education for their children.
“They’re the decisions you’re making,” Biden said. “In the middle-class families like I grew up in… they’re in trouble. We should be talking about your families. But that’s the last thing he wants to talk about.”
Trump slammed Biden quickly, even mocking the way he pivots to the camera: “That’s a typical political statement. Let’s get off this China thing and then he looks.”
Trump said the tactic was what a “typical politician” always does, adding, “I’m not a typical politician. … That’s why I got elected. Let’s get off the subject of China, let’s talk around sitting around the table. Come on, Joe, you can do better.”
Watch the moment:
President Trump was just asked about his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Democrats have focused on the Affordable Care Act during her confirmation hearing, as the Supreme Court is set to soon take up a case on the health care law.
During her confirmation hearings in the Senate, Barrett said she had made no commitments to the President or anyone else about how she might rule on a case aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act or on a potential dispute in the upcoming presidential election.
Barrett vowed that she had not discussed specific cases, like the upcoming challenge to the Affordable Care Act, with Trump or anyone else when she was nominated to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death threw the Senate into a pitched election-year confirmation battle that could swing the court in a more conservative direction.
“Absolutely not. I was never asked, and if I had been that would’ve been a short conversation,” Barrett said during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing when she was asked whether she had committed to vote to repeal the health care law.
The Supreme Court will hear a case on Nov. 10 on whether to strike down the Affordable Care Act, which means Barrett could be on the bench if Republicans are successful in confirming her before Election Day, Nov. 3.
The legal challenge to former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law loomed over Barrett’s hearing: Democrats raised the care that the Affordable Care Act has provided to individuals, continuing their theme from Monday, while Republicans attacked the law.
Barrett pushed back on Democrats’ arguments during her confirmation hearing that her previous criticism of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate in 2012 was a sign of how she would potentially rule in next month’s case. She said that her writing then was in an academic setting and argued that it had no bearing on the upcoming challenge the law.
“I am not hostile to the ACA. I’m not hostile to any statute that you pass,” Barrett said. “I apply the law, I follow the law, you make the policy.”
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden were just asked about health care and the Affordable Care Act.
President Trump pledged in 2016 to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but that hasn’t happened. Now his administration is backing a court challenge that’s scheduled for the Supreme Court just after the election in a case brought by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, who argue the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the entire law must fall.
Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was grilled by Democrats about the health care law during her confirmation hearings. Barrett said she had made no commitments to the President or anyone else about how she might rule on a case aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act or on a potential dispute in the upcoming presidential election.
If the court wipes away Obamacare, it would have a sweeping impact on the nation’s health care system and on the lives of tens of millions of Americans — not only for the roughly 20 million people who’ve gained coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges and through the expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults.
The law is also what allows parents to keep their children on their health insurance plans until age 26 and obtain free mammograms, cholesterol checks and birth control. And one of its most popular provisions is its strong protections for those with pre-existing conditions, including barring insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on people’s health histories.
“When I closed and banned China from coming in … he was saying I was xenophobic, I did it too soon,” President Trump said in tonight’s debate.
Facts First: This needs context. It’s not clear the former vice president even knew about Trump’s China travel restrictions when he called Trump xenophobic on the day the restrictions were unveiled; Biden has never explicitly linked his accusation of xenophobia to these travel restrictions.
Biden’s campaign announced in early April that he supports Trump’s travel restrictions on China. But the campaign did not say the former vice president had previously been wrong about the ban, much less apologize. Rather, the campaign says Biden’s January 31 accusations – that Trump has a record of “hysterical xenophobia” and “fear mongering” – were not about the travel restrictions at all.
The campaign says Biden did not know about the restrictions at the time of his speech, since his campaign event in Iowa started shortly after the Trump administration briefing where the restrictions were revealed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
Given the timing of the Biden remarks, it’s not unreasonable for the Trump campaign to infer that the former vice president was talking about the travel restrictions. But Biden never took an explicit position on the restrictions until his April declaration of support.
See the exchange:
After President Donald Trump unleashed a series of unsubstantiated claims about Joe Biden’s personal finances, the former vice president hit back, citing a recent New York Times story that revealed the President keeps a previously undisclosed bank account in China.
“I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life,” Biden said. “We learned that this President paid 50 times the tax in China (that he has in the US), has a secret bank account with China, does business in China, and, in fact is talking about me taking money? I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever.”
Biden then turned to Trump’s taxes – and the President’s refusal, even now, to make them public. The Times report that uncovered the extent of Trump’s business ambitions in China, along with the bank account, was rooted in tax information that Trump had tried to keep secret.
“You have not released a single solitary year of your tax returns,” Biden said, before suggesting there was more to find out about the President’s overseas dealings. “What are you hiding? Why are you unwilling?”
Trump had opened the door to the conversation with a suggestion that Biden had gotten rich off his previous spells in high office. But, as Biden noted, he has released more than two decades of tax returns and there is no evidence to back Trump’s assertion.
“Release your tax returns,” Biden concluded, “or stop talking about corruption.”
Watch the moment:
The debate has moved to the topic of national security and the candidates are being asked about their stances on the United States’ relationship with China, Iran and North Korea.
Here’s a look at how the candidates compare on foreign policy issues:
A central argument of Joe Biden’s campaign for president is that the former vice president has extensive foreign policy experience from his eight years serving in the White House and from traveling the globe as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In June, Biden pledged to undo President Donald Trump’s foreign policy moves in a speech in which he laid out how he would seek to restore pre-Trump international norms and “place America back at the head of the table.”
The centerpiece of Biden’s effort to return to international cooperation is a summit that Biden said he would call among the world’s democracies, non-governmental organizations and corporations — particularly tech and social media companies — to seek a common agenda to protect their shared values.
Such a summit would push companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter — where Russian trolls reached American voters during the 2016 election — to combat challenges such as surveillance, censorship and the spread of hate speech.
While in the Senate, Biden voted to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002. Like other Democrats who voted yes, Biden has spent the years since apologizing for it as the conflict became increasingly unpopular with the American public and Democratic voters.
Trump has touted wins in the Middle East, with the recent signing of the “Abraham Accords” to normalize relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and the subsequent normalization of relations between Bahrain and Israel. He campaigned on bringing troops back from overseas, but his decision to withdraw most troops from Syria drew wide condemnation – and the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. He has said he wants troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas despite US officials saying any withdrawal would be “conditions-based.”
Trump’s “America First” foreign policy moves have seen the US abandon multilateral organizations and international agreements and at times alienate traditional allies.
The President has sought to undo the accomplishments of his predecessor, Barack Obama. In June 2017, Trump announced he would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. That withdrawal will be complete on November 4 – the day after the election.
He pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and has pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran without the support of key European allies. During the Trump administration, Iran has reduced its commitments under the landmark agreement.
In June 2018, the administration quit the United Nations Human Rights Council, with then-US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley accusing the body of bias against US ally Israel and a failure to hold human rights abusers accountable.
Trump severed ties with the World Health Organization earlier this year as the pandemic raged on, accusing the international body of being beholden to China.
He has embraced adversaries of the US, meeting twice with Kim Jong Un and exchanging fond notes with the North Korean dictator. Neither summit has succeeded in restraining North Korea’s missile tests and working level talks have broken down.
He has failed to offer strong denunciations against Russia’s misdeeds, and following a meeting in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin in July 2018, Trump sided with the Russian leader and against his intelligence community on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has also advocated for allowing Russia back into the G7 – the international group of nations from which it was suspended in 2014 – despite its continued illegal annexation of Crimea.
New York, one of the states hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, took center stage tonight during the final presidential debate as Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Trump disagreed on how the state has handled the health crisis.
Trump called New York City “a ghost town,” where restaurants “are dying” due to shutdowns and its Democratic-led government.
“If you go and look at what’s happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town. And when you talk about Plexiglas, these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money,” Trump said. “Putting up Plexiglas is unbelievably expensive, and it’s not the answer. I mean, you’re going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic? These are businesses that are dying, Joe. You can’t do that to people. You just can’t — take a look at New York and what’s happened to my wonderful city for so many years. I loved it. It was vibrant. It’s dying. Everyone’s leaving New York.”
Biden championed New York state for stemming the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
“Take a look at what New York has done in terms of turning the curve down in terms of the number of people dying. And I don’t look at this in the terms that he does, blue states and red states. They’re all the United States,” Biden said. “And look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. They’re the red states. They’re the states in the midwest. They’re the states in the upper midwest. That’s where the spike is occurring significantly. But they’re all Americans. They’re all Americans. And what we have to do is say wear these masks, number one.”
More about the pandemic in New York City: The New York City public school system, the largest school district in the country, has so far been able to reopen for in-person instruction without a massive outbreak of coronavirus cases.
Aside from New York City, the remaining nine of the nation’s top 10 school districts started their school years online. New York’s preliminary success could potentially serve as a resource for other districts embarking on a return to in-person learning.
Meanwhile, a new study said that nearly two-thirds of New York restaurants could be out of business as soon as January without some sort of additional government aid.
Restaurants across the Empire State have been struggling to stay in business since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to shut down in March. On Sept. 3, the New York State Restaurant Association released the findings from its latest survey of more than 1,000 restaurateurs across the state.
Nearly 64% of restaurant owners said they are likely or somewhat likely to close by the end of this year unless they receive financial relief. And about 55% of those who are likely to close said they expect to shut down before November.
Only about 36% said they expect to still be in business by January.
Some context about a surge in Covid-19 cases nationwide: The US is now grappling with a new Covid-19 surge — one that could overwhelm hospitals, kill thousands of Americans a day by January and leave even young survivors with long-term complications.
“We went down to the lowest point lately in early September, around 30,000-35,000 new cases a day. Now we’re back up to (about) 50,000 new cases a day. And it’s going to continue to rise,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said on Oct. 13.
“This is the fall/winter surge that everyone was worried about. And now it’s happening. And it’s happening especially in the northern Midwest, and the Northern states are getting hit very hard — Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas. But it’s going to be nationally soon enough.”
Across the country, more than 30 states have reported more Covid-19 cases this past week than they reported the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
After a lengthy section on coronavirus, the key distinction President Donald Trump sought to make was his aversion to any further lockdowns to prevent further contagion.
His argument, even as Biden insisted he favored adhering to benchmarks that would govern when states open or apply new restrictions, was that Democratic governors have placed their states in undue lockdowns.
Instead, Trump said the focus should be on protecting vulnerable populations; it’s the same goal of a controversial plan called the Great Barrington Declaration that his administration has endorsed but which other health experts have said is dangerous.
“We have to open up,” Trump said. “We have to protect our elderly.”
Biden, meanwhile, used a new line suggesting his goal was not to keep the country locked down.
“Shut down the virus, not the country,” he said — a catchy slogan, though not one that provides a lot of explanation for his plan.
Here’s the moment:
In response to the first question of the night on coronavirus, President Trump claimed 2.2 million people were “expected to die.”
Facts First: This is false.
Trump is likely citing a report posted in March by scholars from the Imperial College in London that predicted that a total of 2.2 million Americans could die from Covid-19 if no preventative measures were installed on any level of society.
In other words, that would be the loss of lives if no action were taken at all to mitigate it.
The report did not analyze what would happen if just the federal government took no action against the virus but rather what would occur if there were absolutely no “control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behavior.”
President Trump downplayed his struggles with campaign fundraising on Thursday night, telling the debate audience that his campaign has “plenty of money” despite its shrinking bank account.
“I could blow away your records like you wouldn’t believe,” Trump said of Biden’s strong fundraising. “We don’t need money. We have plenty of money.”
Trump pointed to the fact that he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 with a “tiny fraction” of the money she raised.
Biden and the Democratic Party outraised Trump and the Republicans by $135 million in September — $383 million to $247.8 million.
Trump’s comments came during an attempt to attack Biden for taking money from Wall Street. Biden noted that his campaign’s average contribution is $43.
Watch the exchange:
After the first section at tonight’s debate, which was on the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump manages an early lead on speaking times ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden by nearly three minutes.
US authorities are investigating whether recently published emails that purport to detail the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son in Ukraine and China are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting the former vice president’s campaign, a US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter said.
The conservative-leaning New York Post claimed in a series of articles that it obtained “smoking-gun” emails about Hunter Biden and his dealings in Ukraine. CNN has not determined the authenticity of the emails.
President Donald Trump and his allies have used this topic to smear the Bidens over the past year and seized on the recent articles to attack Biden in the final weeks of the presidential election. The specific new allegations touch on the same topics as the Kremlin’s ongoing disinformation campaign against the Bidens, which the US intelligence community said this summer was intended to weaken Biden’s candidacy against Trump.
The FBI is leading the investigation, the official and congressional source said. NBC was first to report the inquiry.
The probe is part of a larger investigation into Russian disinformation that dates back to before the impeachment inquiry last fall. The alleged disinformation campaign is aimed at tying the former vice president to his son’s dealings with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, according to US officials familiar with the matter.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, during an appearance on Fox Business this week, said there was “no intelligence to support” claims that Russian disinformation were behind the articles. The FBI said in a letter Tuesday night that it had “nothing to add” to his comments, but suggested that the review was continuing.
“If actionable intelligence is developed, the FBI in consultation with the Intelligence Community will evaluate the need to provide defensive briefings to you and the Committee pursuant to the established notification framework,” wrote Jill C. Tyson, FBI assistant director for congressional affairs.
The New York Post says it obtained the emails through two Trump confidants: His personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Giuliani has openly coordinated with a known Russian agent to promote disinformation about the Bidens. The Washington Post reported last week the White House, and Trump personally, were warned in 2019 that Giuliani “was being used to feed Russian misinformation” to the President. Separately, Bannon was recently charged by the Justice Department with orchestrating a million-dollar fraud scheme and accused of deceiving thousands of donors to his nonprofit.
Senate Republicans investigated the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine – a probe that received bipartisan criticism as being a politically motivated endeavor. The Republican in charge even said he hoped the findings would convince people not to vote for Biden, but the investigation ended in September without uncovering any evidence that Biden abused his powers or changed US policy because of his son’s business ties.
President Trump claimed during the debate that coronavirus virus is going away. “We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” Trump said.
Facts First: This is false. The US coronavirus situation – as measured by newly confirmed cases, hospitalizations and the test positivity rate -– is getting worse, not better. There is no basis for his vague claim that we are “rounding the corner.”
Trump has baselessly claimed for eight months that the virus would disappear or was currently disappearing.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed President Donald Trump’s response to the state of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
“[Trump] says, we’re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it,” he said.
This came after President Trump claimed he does not say the pandemic will be over soon but that Americans “are learning to live with it. We have no choice.”
Biden added: “You tell the people it’s dangerous now? What should they do about the danger? And you say I take no responsibility.”
About the pandemic: More than 222,000 people have died from coronavirus in the US. The country leads the world in total confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 8.4 million infections since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University data. India, Brazil and Russia follow behind.
Watch the moment:
In perhaps a sign of things to come, President’s Trump’s first answer — which was meant to state how he would lead during the next stage of the coronavirus — relied instead on looking backward and wishful thinking about a vaccine.
“It will go away and as I say, we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” he said.
As he does nearly every time he is pressed on his pandemic response, Trump cited his decision to close travel to China, though thousands of people were exempt and were still able to enter the country. He insisted the United States was suffering alongside Europe, which is also experiencing new spikes. But unlike Trump, leaders there — including French President Emmanuel Macron — have imposed new lockdowns.
And he placed nearly all of his optimism on a vaccine, which he claimed would arrive “within weeks.” There is no indication that is true; vaccine trials are still underway and the Food and Drug Administration has imposed rules requiring months of data for emergency use of a new vaccine. Later, Trump acknowledged his promise of a vaccine “within weeks” was not a “guarantee.” But he said he was hopeful for one by the end of the year.
His answers were a sign that Trump doesn’t plan to change his approach to coronavirus, even as cases surge. He said as much earlier this week; in a town hall event, Trump responded when asked what he would do differently: “Not much.”
This is how the question played out:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden opened the final general election debate on Thursday by arguing President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States should guarantee he is voted out of office in November.
“You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who’s responsible for not taking control, in fact… saying I take no responsibility initially, anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said, referencing Trump telling reporters he takes no responsibility for the virus.
Biden contrasted Trump’s handling of the virus to what he says his own would be: A focus on pushing people to wear masks and more rapid testing for the virus.
“I would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the wherewithal, the financial resources to be able to do that,” Biden said.
The former vice president also warned that the worst of the virus could be yet to come, saying the country is about to “go into a dark winter” and Trump “has no clear plan and there’s no prospect that there’s going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American people before the middle of next year.”
Coronavirus has dominated the general election, with voters telling pollsters and reporters that it is the most important issue on their minds as they consider who to vote for in November.
Watch the moment:
President Trump has in recent months lambasted China over the coronavirus pandemic, but he praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s handling of the deadly disease for months at the beginning of the outbreak.
As cases of Covid-19 first began to appear in the United States, Trump spoke highly of Xi’s handling of the outbreak in China and repeatedly said the US was in close coordination with Beijing on the matter.
“I think they’ve handled it professionally and I think they’re extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it’s going to be resolved,” he said on Feb. 13.
Hundreds of US deaths later, Trump’s attitude toward Beijing began to change.
“I’m a little upset with China, I’ll be honest with you, because as much as I like President Xi and as much as I respect the country and admire the country — I have great admiration for the country, what they’ve done in a short period of time. … But they should have told us about this,” he said on March 22.
Yet even as cases skyrocketed in the US and Trump’s ire with China grew, he directed his actions not at Beijing but at the World Health Organization.
Trump said he was halting funding to the organization in mid-April and announced his intention to withdraw from the WHO in May after he said it “failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms.”
Trump had denounced the US’ contribution to the WHO — $400-500 million — in comparison to China’s and consistently accused the organization of aiding China in allegedly covering up the origins of the virus and allowing its spread. In July, he officially initiated the US withdrawal from the WHO, which will be complete next July.
Trump said last week that he could not say when he had last spoken to his Chinese counterpart.
“I have not spoken to him in a while because I don’t want to speak to him,” he said.
The first question of tonight’s debate is about the coronavirus pandemic, which has become a pivotal issue of the 2020 election.
Here are key facts you need to know:
Here’s where new cases are rising across the US in comparison to the previous week:
The final 2020 presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden just kicked off in Nashville.
Trump enters the debate in need of a major shakeup that will change the trajectory of the race as he trails Biden in both national polls and key swing states that will determine whether he has a path to victory in the Electoral College.
With just 12 days to go before Election Day, Trump has been campaigning across the country with grievance-laden rallies, lashing out at his advisers and medical experts, blaming China for the spread of coronavirus and refusing to take any blame for his poor handling of the pandemic, which has created a huge drag on his poll numbers.
Biden currently has a larger lead in national polls than Hillary Clinton did at this point in 2016. In CNN’s Poll of Polls, Biden is leading Trump by 10 points nationally and he is also showing considerable strength in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin where Trump won by narrow margins in 2016.
Melania Trump has entered the debate hall and is wearing a mask.
Her attendance marks a shift from Tuesday, when, citing an “abundance of caution” and a “lingering cough” after her bout with Covid-19, Trump backed out of a planned appearance with her husband to introduce him at a Pennsylvania rally.
CNN’s Gary Tuchman is watching tonight’s presidential debate with 11 undecided voters in Davidson, North Carolina.
One voter says she’s looking get some more specifics tonight before making a decision.
Another voter is split between voting on policy issues or election fairness.
“Well, I really oppose abortion. But I’m concerned that President trump is a threat to the fairness of elections, so I’m really torn,” he said.
We’ll check in with these voters at the end of the debate to get their reaction and ask them if they’ve made a decision.
Hear what the voters had to say:
Win or lose, tonight is President Donald Trump’s final appearance ever on a presidential debate stage.
His methods haven’t changed much since his first time out in a primary debate in 2015 — when he sparred with moderator Megyn Kelly and later made sexist attacks on her. He still enters the sessions relying primarily on his instincts as a brawler and doesn’t prepare nearly as much as his adversaries.
He held a brief and informal session earlier on Thursday with some of his team, but did not conduct a full mock debate before tonight.
That has been his practice for most of his relatively brief debating career. Trump has preferred more ad-hoc sessions, with advisers peppering him with questions during down moments, than a full dress rehearsal.
He’s had some hits and misses along the way. Some of his general election debates in 2016, and particularly his final one against Hillary Clinton, were viewed by his team as a success.
After that first debate with a large GOP primary field in 2015, many Republicans wondered how much longer they would have to contend with his outbursts and behavior.
Five years later, those traits — and those concerns — are as present as ever.
President Trump’s motorcade has arrived at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, for his final debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The debate begins at 9 p.m. ET.
The CNN Poll of Polls tracks the average poll result in the race for president between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The poll of polls includes the most recent polls that meet CNN’s CNN’s standards for reporting and that measure the views of registered or likely voters. The poll of polls does not have a margin of sampling error.
Here’s where the candidates stand as of today in the polling average:
It’s not just the race for the White House that Republicans are anxious about – it’s holding onto their Senate majority.
The first debate caused heartburn for senators locked in tight contests across the country.
Since then, a handful have gently sought to distance themselves from President Trump – hoping to do what they can to prevent significant defeats down-ballot.
If tonight’s debate is a repeat of the first one, watch for even more senators to join that chorus – and begin making the case that a Republican Senate is needed as a check on a potential Joe Biden presidency.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told his GOP senators to do whatever they think is best – even making that point.
Of course, it’s an open question whether such an argument would work at this late stage of the campaign.
Less than two weeks from Election Day, Joe Biden and President Trump are scheduled to appear onstage 9 p.m. ET for the final general election presidential debate of 2020.
The televised event may be the last opportunity for both candidates to reach a massive national audience before Nov. 3.
Here’s everything you need to know about the final debate:
Joe Biden’s messaging for the past several months has been consistent – focusing on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy as he’s tried to turn the election into a referendum of President Trump’s handling of the crisis.
It’s a contrast to the President, who has waged multiple lines of attacks on Biden to try to find something that will stick.
One of the challenges for Biden tonight is to not get bogged down in the directions President Trump might try to take this debate – including those personal attacks on his family.
One tactic Biden used during that first debate that he’s expected to repeat again tonight is looking directly into camera as he makes his case.
These were moments that the Biden campaign feels worked well for Biden last time around as he looked to connect with voters at home.
Campaign advisers tell CNN they now believe it was a huge mistake for President Trump to cancel on last week’s debate, making a breakout moment a must tonight to shake up the race.
One adviser said Trump needs a “leadership moment” at the debate as Joe Biden is now seen as the front runner heading into the final stretch of this campaign.
A crucial focus for Trump tonight is to reach out to male voters, as advisers worry men — once a key demographic strength for Trump — may be slipping away from the President, as have suburban women and elderly voters.
Another adviser said if Trump fails in his mission tonight, watch for the President to become increasingly desperate in the final days of this campaign.
President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will debate soon in Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Both campaigns agreed that the acrylic glass that was once up in the debate hall was not needed and should be taken down, Frank Fahrenkopf, head of the debate commission, told CNN.
Fahrenkopf told CNN earlier today that the acrylic glass was put up at the recommendation of the medical advisers on the ground.
The commission also released some additional key details about tonight’s debate, via pool:
Here’s what the inside of the debate hall looks like:
It takes at least 270 electoral votes for a presidential candidate to win the election.
CNN’s John King takes a look at the states that are going to be key in former vice president Joe Biden and President Trump’s possible paths to victory.
Watch:
President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will face off shortly for their final presidential debate before the election.
The second debate, scheduled for last week, was canceled after the President tested positive for the coronavirus and subsequently refused to take part in a virtual meeting.
The Commission on Presidential Debates has given the green light to an in-person face-off, but with one unprecedented change: The candidates will have their microphones cut off while their opponents respond to the first question of each of the debate’s six segments.
The topics slated for discussion over 90 uninterrupted minutes, beginning at 9 p.m. ET, include “Fighting COVID-19,” “American Families,” “Race in America,” “Climate Change,” “National Security” and “Leadership.”
But that’s just where the moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, will begin. Where the candidates go from there, especially in Trump’s case, is the wild card.
Here are five things to watch in the debate:
Read more here.
Inside Joe Biden’s house in Wilmington, Delaware, Bob Bauer, the typically soft-spoken veteran Democratic attorney, goes on the attack against the former vice president.
Bauer interrupts and shouts down Biden, who is trying to formulate his arguments for why he should be president.
Bauer is playing the role of President Trump during mock debate prep — often embodying the President as he behaved during the first debate in order to prepare Biden stay on message in the event that Trump blows through new measures put in place by the Commission on Presidential Debates to prevent interruptions.
Team Biden is worried that the plan to mute candidates during portions of the debate will not help with the distraction factor. Even if the audience at home can’t hear the President’s microphone if he interrupts Biden, the Democratic nominee will be standing right there and will hear him loud and clear. Paying no attention to the man next to him is a significant part of Biden’s prep for going into the ring with the President one last time.
Biden and Trump are heading into their final planned showdown of the 2020 campaign, with 12 days to go until Election Day. And their respective teams are studying the first debate, which delved into chaos as Trump continually interrupted Biden. The lessons gleaned from that initial matchup are informing the recommendations being made to the candidates as they prepare to take the stage one last time.
Trump’s advisers are have pleaded with the President to try a different tactic this time around.
Republican sources tell CNN that not only did the President’s internal polling numbers drop because of his erratic performance during the first debate, his fellow Republicans down ballot, especially vulnerable Republican senators, also took a hit in their own polling because of Trump’s behavior on stage with Biden.
Kellyanne Conway, who was part of the team that helped prepare the President for the first debate inside the White House map room, said she warned him not to interrupt too much.
“My last piece of advice to the President, which I shared with him directly and I shared with him before the first debate, let Biden speak,” Conway relayed in an interview.
Conway and other Trump advisers are renewing their argument to him ahead of the last debate that the more Trump let’s Biden speak, the worse it is for Biden.
Read the full story here.
For all of the campaign’s focus on suburban women, the Trump and Biden campaigns are laser-focused on men in the closing days of the race.
Talking to advisers from both campaigns, their strategies for tonight come into sharper view: President Trump wants to try — once again — to prevent any more erosion to former vice president Joe Biden. He’s particularly concerned about college-educated men, so Trump is poised to sound the alarm about tax increases under Biden and Democrats.
Joe Biden is also hoping to speak to men tonight, intent on hammering home that only households making over $400,000 would see any tax increase.
The bottom line: So many women have decided. Men are key in the final stretch.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spent three days off the campaign trail, gearing up for tonight’s debate. A Biden adviser said the former vice president held mock debates, running through scenarios where the President continues his interruptions – even if they might not be heard by voters over the television.
Biden expects the President to launch personal attacks on his family once again – a strategy that Biden’s advisers believes backfires on the president.
Biden allies have said they don’t expect the former vice president to try to turn the tables on President Trump and his family, with Sen. Chris Coons telling CNN he doesn’t think Biden will “take the bait.”
Instead Biden’s advisers and allies say he plans to turn this back to the issues impacting American families – Covid-19 and the economy, and Biden’s guests tonight reflect that push.
The former vice president has invited Zweli and Leonardo Williams of Durham, North Carolina, whose small business has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic – the types of voters Biden hopes to speak to tonight as he makes his closing case in the waning days of the election.
After a Covid-19 outbreak at the White House, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says wearing masks “is not the panacea” to make sure the virus doesn’t spread.
“Will it help in confined spaces? Certainly, it helps,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “But we also need to understand that wearing a mask — if we could say, ‘we mandate masks and everybody can go back to work,’ then that would be something to consider. But even the doctors, even Dr. Fauci would say that that is not something that would protect all Americans.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has recommended wearing masks to combat the spread of coronavirus on multiple occasions.
Meadows was also asked if he alongside Trump’s family and guests will wear masks this time in the debate hall after some from Trump’s entourage failed to do so during the first presidential debate.
“That’s part of the rules this time. It was not mandatory last time,” he said. “It’s mandatory for anyone in the audience to wear a mask. So, we’ll comply with that.”
“We’ve all been tested,” he added.
Both President Trump and Joe Biden’s campaigns agreed that the acrylic glass barriers that was once up in the Nashville debate hall was not needed and should be taken down, Frank Fahrenkopf, head of the debate commission, tells CNN.
Fahrenkopf told CNN earlier today that the acrylic glass barriers was up at the recommendation of the medical advisers on the ground.
Fahrenkopf said this afternoon, the advisers said they believed the barriers “would be helpful under the circumstances” but changed their minds once they “found out the President was tested today and tested negative” and had gone days without any signs of coronavirus.
The medical advisers also called Dr. Anthony Fauci and the public health expert “agreed that the Plexiglas wouldn’t do anything,” Fahrenkopf said.
It is now unlikely that acrylic glass dividers will be present for tonight’s debate, Commission senior adviser Peter Eyre tells the pool in Nashville.
Circumstances on the ground have changed, he said. There was no further explanation given.
The dividers had been visible earlier on the stage but have now been removed, according to the pool.
Masks are required for everyone at all times and anyone who doesn’t oblige will be asked to leave. Also, everyone within the perimeter, and therefore any debate-related area, will be tested, the commission says.
Earlier Thursday, Frank Fahrenkopf, chairman of the commission on Presidential Debates, had said the large acrylic glass barriers between the two podiums at the Curb Event Center in Nashville would remain in place for the debate at the recommendation of medical advisers from The Cleveland Clinic.
Tonight was supposed to be the third and final presidential debate — but instead, it’s the second and final one.
Last year, before we even knew who would be the Democratic presidential nominee, the Commission on Presidential Debates scheduled three debates for Sept. 29, Oct. 15 and Oct 22.
But last week, the commission canceled the Oct. 15 debate between President Trump and Joe Biden after the President declined to do a virtual debate despite concerns over his Covid-19 diagnosis, organizers said.
Instead of meeting on the same debate stage and directly taking on each other, Biden and Trump held individual, competing town halls.
How the last week’s debate fell apart: Ahead of the scheduled second debate, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced it was shifting to a virtual debate due to concerns about coronavirus, particularly after Trump’s positive diagnosis with the virus.
Shortly after, the President announced he would not participate in a virtual debate. The Trump campaign then proposed delaying the the town hall debate a week, and pushing the third and final debate a week as well. Biden’s campaign rejected that proposal, and in the meantime, Biden booked a town hall on ABC.
After Trump released letters from his doctor clearing him to resume public activity, his campaign pushed for the in-person debate to be reinstated.
The commission officially canceled the debate just days before it was set to be held. NBC on then announced it would hold a town hall with Trump at the same time as Biden’s ABC event.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated which debate was canceled. It was the Oct. 15 debate.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump will have their microphones muted during parts of tonight’s debate.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced the decision on Monday after members discussed potential rule changes to the debate format.
They decided that the changes were needed because of how the first debate between Biden and Trump devolved into chaos, with the President frequently interrupting the former vice president.
The muting will work like this: At the start of each of the six segments of the debate, each candidate will be given two minutes to answer an initial question. During that portion, the opposing candidate’s microphone will be muted.
“Under the agreed upon debate rules, each candidate is to have two minutes of uninterrupted time to make remarks at the beginning of each 15 minute segment of the debate. These remarks are to be followed by a period of open discussion,” the commission said in a statement. “Both campaigns this week again reaffirmed their agreement to the two-minute, uninterrupted rule.”
The statement continued: “The Commission is announcing today that in order to enforce this agreed upon rule, the only candidate whose microphone will be open during these two-minute periods is the candidate who has the floor under the rules. For the balance of each segment, which by design is intended to be dedicated to open discussion, both candidates’ microphones will be open.”
Both microphones will be unmuted after each candidate delivers their two-minute answer.
The Commission on Presidential debates announced last week six topics for the second and final debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The topics are:
The format for tonight’s debate is the same as the first debate: Each segment will last about 15 minutes, and the candidates will have two minutes to respond after the moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, opens each segment with a question.
The commission announced earlier this week that the microphone of the other candidate will be muted for those first two minutes of initial response.
Welker will then use the rest of the time in the segment to facilitate further discussion on the topic.
The final debate will kick off tonight at 9 p.m. ET and run until 10:30 p.m.
