Not quite as bruising, but the debate had some heated moments
Credit: Reuters
Mr Biden, for his part, delivered a string of cutting lines about Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic, arguing that no president who had overseen the death of 220,000 people from Covid-19 should be handed a second term.
“Learning to live with it? Come on. We’re dying with it,” Mr Biden said of Mr Trump’s insistence that the pandemic is nearing its end. The Democrat also defended his willingness to use lockdowns, saying: “I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country.”
There were eye-catching exchanges on the separation of migrant families, a policy Mr Trump initially increased in use during his presidency. “They are so well taken care of,” the president said of child migrants, something immigration experts dispute.
For Mr Biden there were also some fumbles. He was seen checking his watch, something that, when done by George H W Bush in a presidential debate against Bill Clinton, became an infamous gaffe.
Mr Biden also said he would “transition from the oil industry”, which will be cheered by climate change supporters, but Mr Trump jumped on this as a blunder, arguing it will put off voters in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Yet at the end of the night it was not clear there had been any single moment that could turn this race on its head.
David Axelrod, a campaign strategist who helped Barack Obama win two elections, said on CNN shortly after the debate: “Fundamentally if you are ahead and you get a draw, you win.”
It was Mr Biden who went into the debate ahead, at least according to the polls, where he enjoys close to a nine-point lead nationwide.
Trump’s changed approach
The president had seen that poll gap become even wider in the wake of the first debate in late September in Cleveland, Ohio, when he had repeatedly interrupted Mr Biden. That debate was widely dubbed the most aggressive and chaotic in modern US presidential history and also appeared to harm Mr Trump politically, given his poll drop that followed.
Trump vs. Biden 2020 polling live
On Thursday evening in Nashville, Mr Trump appeared more buttoned down from the off — a reflection partly of the format change that saw one candidate’s microphone muted when the other was giving his opening statement on a topic.
Mr Trump did not interrupt at all in the first 10 minutes. At times he put his hand up to intervene, once saying after being given permission: “Thank you and I appreciate that.”
The president became more high-energy about 35 minutes in, jumping in at times when Mr Biden spoke and pushing back hard. But the debate did not descend into a shouting match. Throughout, a clear strategy emerged of Mr Trump framing Mr Biden as the ultimate example of the Washington “swamp” he vowed to drain in the 2016 campaign.
“See, it’s all talk, no action with these politicians”, Mr Trump said at one time, building on his pre-2016 brand as a businessman rather than his recent role as an elected politician himself.
It was a line Mr Trump repeated over and over. When Mr Biden mentioned a policy, Mr Trump often noted he had been in the White House for eight years and yet not enacted it, asking: “Why didn’t you get it done?”
Hunter Biden allegations made
The president produced one surprise hours before the event when it emerged he had invited Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Mr Biden’s son Hunter, to the debate.
Mr Bobulinski unexpectedly gave a seven-minute statement to a group of reporters before the debate, describing how he and Hunter Biden had tried to do business in China in 2017. "I’ve heard Joe Biden say he never discussed business with Hunter. That is false,” Mr Bobulinski alleged at one point.
The statement included a slew of complex allegations that were impossible to immediately verify. Mr Bobulinski said he was handing devices over to the FBI to back up his claims.
The move had echoes of a debate in the 2016 campaign when Mr Trump gathered Bill Clinton accusers before facing his wife and then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Hunter Biden allegations came up in this debate. Mr Biden insisted, as he has throughout this year, that such stories were smears. He also called Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump ally who has pushed the claims, a “Russian pawn”.
Mr Biden went on the attack by bringing up Mr Trump’s Chinese bank account, which came to light this month via The New York Times. Mr Trump said it had been closed, and shot back: “I don’t make money from China. You do. I don’t make money from Ukraine. You do. I don’t make money from Russia.” Mr Biden denied that.
Who built the cages, Joe?
Mr Trump defended his administration’s separation of immigrant children at the Mexico border. The American Civil Liberties Union said this week that there are still 545 children who had not been reunited with their parents after being separated in 2018.
Mr 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."
The president responded that the cages children were pictured in a few years ago were built by the Obama administration. He said: "Just one question, ‘Who built the cages, Joe?’. He did nothing but build cages to keep children in."
Mr Trump said of the separated children: "They’re so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that are so clean." He said his administration was working "very hard" to reunite them with their relatives.
The president said his administration had deterred illegal immigration. He said: "They never come back. Only the really, I hate to say this, but those with the lowest IQ, they might come back."
Mr Trump went on to say that he was the "least racist person in this room". Mr Biden responded: "Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we have had in American history."
‘We cannot lock ourselves in a basement’
The candidates clashed fiercely over the coronavirus, with Mr Biden saying: "We’re heading for a dark winter." He added: "Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain president."
Mr Trump responded that "we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away". He also said a vaccine was potentially "weeks" away and the military was ready to distribute it.
The president said of Mr Biden: "All he does is talk about shutdowns. His Democrat governors, they’re shut down so tight and they’re dying, they’re dying, he supports these people.
"We’re not going to shut down. We’re going to open our schools. I have a son, he tested positive. It went away, it’s their immune system. I want to open the schools.
"I say we’re learning to live with it, we cannot lock ourselves in a basement. He [Mr Biden] can afford to lock himself in a basement, he obviously made a lot of money some place. We’re opening up our country."
Mr Biden hit back: "We ought to be able to safely open, but you need resources to open". He said Republicans would not give the necessary money to schools to reopen. He added: "This is the same fellow who told you it was going to end by Easter. He has no clear plan. "Folks, I will take care of this, I will end this, I will make sure we have a plan."
Biden vows to ‘transition’ from oil industry
In a debate section on the environment Mr Trump asked his opponent: "Would you close down the oil industry?" Mr Biden responded: "I would transition from the oil industry, yes, I would transition."
The president said that was a "big statement" and Mr Biden replied: "That is a big statement because the oil industry pollutes, it has to be replaced by renewable energy, over time. I’d stop giving federal subsidies."
Mr Trump said: "That’s the biggest statement in terms of business, because basically what he’s saying is he’s going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania? Oklahoma? Ohio?"
Mr Biden said he was being taken out of context. The president also accused him of wanting to ban fracking. "He was against fracking," Mr Trump said. "He said it. Until he got the nomination, went to Pennsylvania, then he said…but you know what Pennsylvania, he’ll be against it very soon because his party is totally against it."
Mr Biden responded: "I said, no fracking on federal land."
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