FINAL FACEOFF Trump, Biden make their cases in last debate before election
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Joe Biden unleashed a blistering attack on President Donald Trump’s ability to lead the country through the pandemic, arguing Thursday night that he already has too much blood on his hands to deserve a second term.
“220,000 Americans dead,” he said at the outset of their second and final debate, holding up a black facemask he’d deliberately removed as he walked onstage. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States . ... We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan.”
“It’s his ineptitude that caused the country to have to shut down,” Biden asserted.
Trump defended his leadership, insisting that the death toll from COVID-19 is well below projections of 2.2 million people — though that was only if no public health measures were taken, including widespread mask usage, social distancing, contact tracing and shutdowns.
“We’re fighting it and we’re fighting it hard,” Trump said, acknowledging “spikes and surges” that generally have subsided and promising that a vaccine will be announced “within weeks.”
“I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries for what we’ve been able to do . ... It will go away. We’ve rounded the turn,” Trump said, warning that the economic recovery would be
in peril if Biden wins, because “he’ll close down the country if one person in the massive bureaucracy says we should close it down.”
So often, the run-up to a presidential debate is marked by jostling to set expectations.
But after the Cleveland spectacle three weeks ago, expectations were set in cement for Thursday night’s final showdown. Speculation was scarce that this would play out as a civil, low-octane exchange of ideas, though that didn’t rule out the possibility that the debate could change the trajectory 12 days out from Election Day.
But Trump remained measured — combative, but focused on the attacks he’d clearly come prepared to deliver.
He and Biden squabbled about energy, with Trump repeating the false claim that Biden wants to halt all fracking.
“He is going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?” Trump said.
Biden parried with a widely mocked claim Trump made: “He thinks windmills cause cancer,” which drew a quick retort from the president.
Trump boasted that under his policies, the United States is no longer a net importer of energy.
And he said, “I know more about wind than you do. It’s extremely expensive, kills all the birds, it’s very intermittent, it’s got a lot of problems.”
The mutual contempt was unconcealed and the rancor unbridled as the rivals traded corruption allegations. But the give-and-take followed the norms of high-stakes debate, with each taking turns with their jabs and explanations.
Tens of millions of voters tune in to these events, and while hardly any tell pollsters they’re seriously undecided between the nation’s 45th president and its 47th vice president, each side is hoping to use the debate to rev up enthusiasm.
Hanging over the proceedings: a pandemic that has cost more than 223,000 deaths this year. More than 17,000 have died in just the 23 days since Biden and Trump faced off in Cleveland, despite Trump’s claims in recent days that the crisis is waning and the country has “turned the corner.”
Trump’s incessant interruptions at the Sept. 29 showdown prompted the bipartisan debate commission to introduce a mute button, a first since televised presidential debates began in 1960.
Trump chafed but agreed to participate anyway.
With Biden in solid command in national polls, and leading in battleground states the president can’t win without, Trump’s need for this 90 minutes of primetime exposure outweighed his annoyance at being muted for two minutes at a time.
Under the rules, mics were turned off only during the initial statement in each 15-minute segment. Muting never seemed to interfere. Nor did the candidates try to talk over each other.
With 12 days left, the clash in Nashville was Trump’s best chance to press corruption allegations against Biden involving his son Hunter Biden, even as he faced a new revelation this week of a secret bank account in China tied to the Trump empire’s expansion efforts.
“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. You made three and a half million dollars,” Trump said in Nashville, days after demanding his rival face prosecution for unspecified crimes.
Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani have latched onto an unverified New York Post report last week about emails from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden, purportedly showing influence peddling involving a Ukrainian energy firm he worked for.
“His buddy Rudy Giuliani is being used as a Russian pawn,” Biden asserted, counterpunching more than he had in the first debate. “I don’t know why this president is unwilling to take on Putin, when (Putin is) actually paying bounties” for the deaths of U.S. service members in Afghanistan, and interfering in U.S. elections, he said.