President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, faced off in the final presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle from Belmont University in Nashville on Thursday night, marking the candidates’ last chance to pitch themselves to tens of millions of voters in primetime before Nov. 3.
The stakes were high: Trump needed to make his case as polls show him trailing nationally and in several battleground states key to his reelection hopes. At the same time, Biden had a platform to solidify his lead and avoid any major mistakes with Election Day just 12 days away.
Biden spent the week hunkered down in Wilmington, Delaware, to prepare -- what he's done before other debates -- while Trump had seemingly done less to prepare, telling reporters on Wednesday, "I do prep, I do prep," without elaborating. Earlier this week Trump said that answering journalists' questions is the best kind of preparation.
Thursday's debate was supposed to be the candidates' third matchup but is instead the second of only two presidential debates this election. Trump refused to participate in the second debate when it was moved to a virtual format following his COVID-19 diagnosis. The candidates ultimately participated in dueling town halls instead.
Here's how the evening unfolded. All times Eastern.
Oct 23, 2020, 12:16 AM EDT
Final candidate speaking times
After over 90 minutes on the final presidential debate stage, below is ABC’s calculation of the candidates' approximate speaking times:
Trump: 40:36 Biden: 39:24
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are joined on stage by first lady Melania Trump and Dr. Jill Biden after their second 2020 presidential campaign debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 22, 2020.
Mike Segar/Reuters
Here's the time spent on each individual topic including moderator speaking time:
COVID-19: 20:32 National security: 19:55 American families: 21:12 Race in America: 14:02 Climate change: 11:28 Leadership: 4:49
-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh
Oct 23, 2020, 12:03 AM EDT
Fact Check: US exports more energy than imports, but not completely energy independent, despite Trump claim
TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We are energy independent for the first time."
FACT CHECK: The U.S. exports more energy products like oil and liquid natural gas than it exports, but many parts of the country still rely on oil from other countries.
The amount of oil produced in the U.S. is about 1.25 million barrels a day short of demand, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and while imports are at a record low the country still relies on imported products for 3% of domestic petroleum consumption.
One of Trump's goals has been to make the U.S. energy independent, in part by expanding oil and gas drilling around the country including on public lands.
President Donald Trump speaks during the third and final presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 22, 2020.
Jim Bourg/Pool via Reuters
Last year, U.S. energy exports surpassed imports for the first time since 1952, largely due to increases in natural gas production.
Fact check: Trump falsely accuses Biden of calling Black Americans 'super predators'
TRUMP'S CLAIM: "He's been in government 47 years. He never did a thing, except in 1994, when he did such harm to the Black community. And they were called, and he called them 'super predators.' And he said that. He said it, 'super predators.' And they have never lived that down."
FACT CHECK: It was then-first lady Hillary Clinton who used the phrase "super predators" in 1996, while expressing her support for the 1994 crime bill.
Both former Biden and Trump have made past references to Americans being "predators."
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks while President Donald Trump, shown in reflection, listens during the final presidential debate at Belmont University on Oct. 22, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In a speech from on the floor of the Senate in 1993, Biden said, "We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created." He added, "They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale, and it's a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society."
Trump, in his 2000 book "The America We Deserve," wrote several times about "predators."
"The perpetrator is never a victim," Trump wrote. "He's nothing more than a predator, and there can be no excuses made for killing old ladies, beating old men, or shooting adolescents."
Trump added: "If I were in charge of things, life would be even tougher for these predators. If there was a situation in New York like that terrible dragging death in Texas, I'd not only put the perpetrators to death, I'd find some way to make them an example to others."
Fact check: Trump's uses false facts to defend family separations
TRUMP'S CLAIM: "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." // "They built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages." // "They are so well taken care of. They are in facilities that are so clean."
FACT CHECK: Trump was defending his now-defunct policy known as "zero tolerance" that required every adult who crossed the border illegally -- even those traveling with their children -- be detained in a bid to deter border crossings.
The result was that thousands of children were separated from their parents in a matter of weeks. It was a major departure from past U.S. policy. In the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, families were separated in rare instances, such as cases of serious crimes like drug trafficking.
President Donald Trump speaks during the third and final presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 22, 2020.
Jim Bourg/Pool via Reuters
Critics of Trump's policy questioned the conditions the kids were kept in initially at border stations after several died of the flu.
An internal investigation later found that the administration struggled to keep track of the parents, many of whom had been deported. The White House says the parents were contacted and abandoned the children, who were placed with U.S. sponsors, usually family members. The American Civil Liberties Union countered that parents have not been found and contacted and therefore could not give up rights to their children.
Homeland security officials have said that "coyotes" are often used to transport the families for a fee. But there has not been widespread evidence of cases of people falsely presenting themselves as related, with border patrol documenting them as "family units."
Trump's suggestion that "cages" were built by the Obama administration is correct. Obama had faced an influx of children both traveling alone and with families as a result of violence in Central America. And at one point, the Obama administration tried housing the families in special detention centers.
But after a federal judge in California ruled that the arrangement violated a long-standing agreement barring kids from jail-like settings for extended periods, even with their parents, the government began releasing families into the U.S. pending notification of their next court date.
In 2018, photos taken by The Associated Press and posted online by liberal activists suggested the children in steel fencing was Trump's doing. The photos were actually from 2014 when immigration detentions became flooded with families.