Highlights from the first presidential debate held in Cleveland.
President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden faced off from a social distance in the first presidential debate of 2020 in Cleveland, just five weeks out from Election Day.
The first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic came on the heels of bombshell reporting from The New York Times on two decades of Trump's tax records, ahead of a contentious Supreme Court confirmation process in the Senate and as the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Biden maintains a 10-point edge among both registered and likely voters.
The coronavirus pandemic's impact on the race was also on display as the two candidates didn't partake in a handshake, customary at the top of such events. The size of the audience was also limited and everyone attending the debate had to undergo COVID-19 testing and follow other public health protocols.
The debate’s moderator, Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday," selected six topics for Tuesday with each segment expected to get approximately 15 minutes: Trump's and Biden's records, the Supreme Court, COVID-19, the economy, race and violence in U.S. cities, and the integrity of the election -- the final topic coming as Trump over the weekend wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
Following the debate, Biden campaign officials said they had their best fundraising hour of the entire campaign between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and that the former vice president’s callout during the debate to Iwillvote.com led to the most concurrent users in the website’s history.
TRUMP'S CLAIM: "It's China's fault, it should have never happened. They stopped it from going in. But it was China's fault. By my doing it early -- in fact, Dr. Fauci said, 'President Trump saved thousands of lives.' Many of your Democrat governors said, 'President Trump did a phenomenal job.'"
FACT CHECK: Trump is overstating his early actions in containing the virus by suggesting his travel restrictions from China were critical.
While Dr. Anthony Fauci has confirmed that those restrictions were important, Trump is omitting a major miscalculation he made early on in the pandemic -- not restricting travel from Europe.
"The president's decision to essentially have a major blocking of travel from China, that already had an effect of not seeding the way, in Europe," Fauci told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" in March. "What we're doing now with the other travel restrictions -- so you block infections from coming in," Fauci continued, adding that containment and mitigation efforts were implemented to keep us away from that worst-case scenario."
Up to 75% of the coronavirus specimens circulating in the New York City area in early March were genetically similar to strains seen in Europe and other areas of North America, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published in July.
Although Fauci has said that the president's travel restrictions did save lives, he has also stated on numerous occasions that if mitigation efforts such as social distancing and mask wearing were implemented earlier, then many lives could have been saved.
"I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. ... If we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different," Fauci said during an interview on CNN in April.
-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos
ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos called Tuesday's debate the worst he has ever seen in his life.
"I have to speak personally here, as somebody who's watched presidential debates for 40 years, as somebody who's moderated presidential debates, as someone who's prepared candidates for presidential debates, and someone who's covered presidential debates, that was the worst presidential debate I have ever seen in my life -- a lot more heat than light over some 90 minutes," he said.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl said, "It looked as if both men lost this debate" but added that it was Trump who had more to lose.
"In that sense the real loser is Donald Trump," Karl added. "Donald Trump was the one that needed to change the dynamic of this race."
ABC News' Senior Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce reported that the Biden's campaign is "feeling very good right now," following the debate, saying they believe every time Biden "went around the president" and spoke directly to the viewers "they were winning."
TRUMP'S STATEMENT: "Every year, I get the call, 'California's burning. California's burning.' If that was cleaned, if you have forest management, good forest management, you wouldn't be getting those calls."
FACT CHECK: Trump's repeated comments connecting forest management and wildfires ignores the increasing impact on climate change on how quickly the fires develop and spread.
Trump has focused on forest management when talking about wildfires in western states, often criticizing local leaders who have disagreed with his response to climate change.
While decisions about how to manage forests and wildfires are important, Trump's stance disregards evidence that climate change is playing a significant role in why wildfires have become so destructive in recent years.
During a briefing on wildfires in California earlier this month Trump refuted State Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crawfoot when he described the impact of increasing heat and drought on the conditions that lead to fires. Trump said, "It'll start getting cooler," directly contradicting conclusions by climate scientists who argue temperatures around the world will continue to rise by saying, "I don't think science knows actually."
Increasing heat and droughts are "supercharging" wildfires by creating drier conditions for trees and brush. Warmer temperatures have also decreased moisture from melting snow and allowed bark beetles to travel further north, killing millions of trees, according to the National Climate Assessment published in 2018.
These factors allow fires to spread more quickly.
As the planet continues to warm, those conditions will only get worse, making wildfires more dangerous, climate scientists say.
The majority of land impacted by wildfires in states like California, Washington and Oregon is also managed by the federal government, which proactively removes dead trees and brush and conducts controlled burns to keep forests healthy.
-ABC News' Stephanie Ebbs
