Trump, Biden clash in final debate on COVID-19 response, health care, race

With unprecedented unemployment in the United States, where health care is inextricably linked to employment, and a coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe, it's safe to say that on Nov. 3, health is on the ballot.

As it stands, more than 220,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. Another roughly 13 million are unemployed.

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Trump vs. Biden on the issues: Health and COVID-19

An overview of the presidential candidates’ positions on various issues.

ABCNews.com

Health might be a political football in 2020, but it's also a deeply personal issue that affects every American voter. Given health's crucial significance this year, the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund polled 4,220 likely voters in battleground states between Aug. 25 and Sept. 20 on which health care issues mattered most to them, and which candidate -- Trump or Biden -- they thought would be more likely to address those health concerns.

Here's what the American public said about which health care issues they care about.

-ABC News' Erin Schumaker

BIDEN'S CLAIM: "The expectation is we'll have another 200,000 Americans dead in the time between now and the end of the year. If we just wore these masks, the president's own advisers have told him, we could save 100,000 lives."

FACT CHECK: The president's advisers haven't used this estimate, though the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has strongly recommended wearing them. A modeling study by the University of Washington estimated at one point that if most Americans wore masks, it could save 100,000 lives by the end of the year. That estimate has been repeated by Tom Frieden, who led the CDC under President Barack Obama.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the current head of the CDC under Trump, has not made such a statement.

According to his office, he has said that the pandemic could begin to come under control in eight to 12 weeks "if all people living in America wore a face mask, were smart about social distancing and crowds, and practiced good hand hygiene."

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty

Trump and Biden took questions on how to deal with China more broadly amid transparency concerns with the Chinese government. After Biden said he would make China “play by the international rules,” Trump touted $28 billion in subsidies given to farmers during his administration affected by the U.S.-China trade war.

“First of all, China is paying. They're paying billions and billions of dollars. I just gave $28 billion to our farmers,” Trump said, before Biden interrupted, “That’s taxpayers' money.”

Given a chance to respond, Biden turned to families at home. 

“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 is hurting badly,” Biden said. 

“Are we going to be able to pay the mortgage? Who's going to tell her she can't go back to community college? They're the decisions you're making in the middle-class families like I grew up in Scranton and Claymont. They're in trouble. We should be talking about your families, but that's the last thing he wants to talk about,” Biden added. 

Trump scoffed at Biden's answers and took the chance to define himself as not another “typical politician.”

“That is a typical statement,” Trump responded. “That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing. He looks at the family around the table, just a typical politician. 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.”

Biden responded to reports that Russia and Iran obtained voter information as a part of an election disinformation campaign by saying that any country that interferes in American elections will "pay a price."

" They will pay a price. And it's been overwhelmingly clear, this election -- I won't even get into the last one -- this election, that Russia's been involved. China's been involved to some degree," he said.  

"Now we learn that -- that Iran is involved. They will pay a price if I'm elected. They're interfering with American sovereignty," Biden added.

In a disturbing allegation, the FBI director and director of national intelligence announced Wednesday night that Russia and Iran have conducted counterintelligence operations secretly to obtain voter registration information about Americans, allowing them to directly reach out to voters in Florida and Alaska.

The director of national intelligence portrayed Trump as the victim of the attack, and did not mention Democratic voters that were targeted.
Biden went on to accuse Trump of being a "Russian pawn" and not speaking out for the country's actions. 

"I don't understand why this president is unwilling to take on Putin when he's actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, when he's engaged in activities that are trying to destabilize all of NATO. I don't know why he doesn't do it, but it's worth asking the question," he said.