1st presidential debate between Trump and Biden spirals into chaotic clash

Amid bombshell reporting in the New York Times on the past two decades of Trump's taxes, Wallace put the first question to the president.

"Is it true that you paid $750 in federal income taxes?" Wallace asked. 

"I paid millions of dollars in taxes," Trump responded. "Millions of dollars of income tax."

But the president never fully answered if that was federal income tax.

Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016, the year he ran for president, and in 2017, his first year in the White House, according to the Times report. 

Biden, meanwhile, paid nearly $288,000 in federal income taxes last year, according to returns he released just hours before his Tuesday night debate, an effort to draw a sharp contrast with the revelations about Trump's tax returns. 

Democrats said if the president is upwards of $400 million in debt as the New York Times has reported, he poses a national security threat to the country. 

Wallace pressed on, asking "Mr. President, I'm asking you a question. Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017?

"Millions of dollars," Trump replied. 

The president then blamed Biden for the tax codes since Biden has worked for so long in Washington. 

"I'm going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts," Biden said. 

"You are the worst president America has ever had," Biden continued. 

"Let me just say, I've done more in 47 months than you've done in 47 years, Joe," Trump replied.

In a heated discussion on tax policy, Biden criticized Trump's trade policies with China which led to the first thinly veiled mention of Hunter Biden on stage. 

"He talks about the art of the deal. China's perfected the art of the steal. We have a higher deficit with China now than we did before, we have the highest deficit -- trade deficit with Mexico," Biden said, before Trump interrupted. 

"China ate your lunch, Joe. And no wonder your son goes in and he takes out what he takes out, billion of dollars," Trump said, before launching personal attacks on Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and his business dealings while his father was vice president. Hunter Biden has denied any wrongdoing. 

"We want to talk about families and ethics? I don't want to do that. I mean his family, we can talk about all night," Biden responded, then said the American people don't want to hear about their families.

Asked about how they would deal with economic recovery, Trump said he would avoid further shutdowns, touted the current economic recovery and credited himself with bringing back college football. 

"Our country is coming back incredibly well, setting records as it does it. We don't need somebody to come in and say let's shut it down," Trump said, though Biden said he would not impose a full shutdown as the president suggested.

Biden then took the opportunity to speak directly to American families on Trump's taxes and repeated his mantra that the U.S. "can't fix the economy without fixing COVID."

"The difference is millionaires and billionaires like him in the middle of the COVID crisis have done very well," Biden said. "You folks living in Scranton and Clayton and all the small towns and working-class towns in America: How well are you doing?"

When confronted by Wallace about the disparity between what his public health officials are saying and what he has said about the timing of the vaccine, Trump stuck with his previous comments.

"We can have it a lot sooner," Trump said. "It's a very political thing because people like this would rather make it political than save lives."

Top U.S. government public health officials and other experts have said that it's possible -- if everything goes well, but unlikely -- that vaccine trials will have enough clear and compelling data to be available by the end of October or beginning of November. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost infectious disease expert, has said he thinks there will be a "safe and effective vaccine" by "the end of this calendar year."

Fauci has also said that the United States will not return to "normal" until the middle of next year.

Biden interrupted the president by referring to Trump's previous statements earlier this year, when he said the virus would be gone by Easter and then also referenced Trump's potentially dangerous comment that people can inject bleach to get rid of the virus. Trump then responded that he said the bleach comment "sarcastically" made. 

Biden turned to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died due to the coronavirus.

"His own head of the CDC said if we just wore masks between now -- if everybody wore masks and social distanced -- between now and January, we probably save up to 100,000 lives," Biden said.