Trump, Biden clash in final debate on COVID-19 response, health care, race
Highlights from the final presidential debate before Election Day.
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.
Top headlines:
Trump vs. Biden on the issues: Foreign policy
American foreign policy for over half a century was defined by its bipartisan nature, symbolized in the old adage that politics stopped at the water's edge.
But in recent years, foreign policy has become as politically charged as virtually everything else in American life, and when voters mail in their ballots or go to the polls, they'll face a stark difference between the Republican and Democratic nominee and their views of the world and the United States' place in it.
Ahead of Thursday's debate, the Trump campaign made an eleventh-hour demand that the questions focus on foreign policy, as opposed to the topics chosen by the moderator, though the campaigns agreed months ago to allowing the moderator to choose the debate topics.
Read about how Trump and Biden differ on major foreign policy issues including relations with China, Iran, North Korea and NATO allies, among others, here.
-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan
Both candidates report testing negative for COVID-19
Aides to Trump and Biden separately reported their candidates tested negative for COVID-19 ahead of the final debate.
Earlier Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that Trump had tested negative, and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows said the president was tested during the flight from the Washington, D.C., area to Nashville.
They did not offer information on whether the people who accompanied Trump to Nashville -- including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Tiffany Trump, Bill Stepien, David Bossie and Robert O’Brien -- were tested.
At a NBC News town hall last week, Trump claimed he didn’t remember whether he’d been tested on the day of the first debate, which took place before his first positive COVID-19 test was reported.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle and Jordyn Phelps
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will attend the debate as Biden guest
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted Thursday that she will be attending the presidential debate as a guest of Biden. Bottoms also tweeted that she was a guest at the first debate in September.
Other guests of the former vice president include small business owners Zweli and Leonardo Williams of Durham, North Carolina. Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders said the campaign invited them to draw attention to the struggles of small business owners.
“These small business owners from Durham -- because these are much like small business owners from Wisconsin, like the small business owners down in Georgia, like small business owners all over this country -- who are grappling with how to make ends meet, how to continue to provide, not only for their families but their employees. They're making decisions that, frankly, they shouldn't have to make because the president failed them,” Sanders said.
-ABC News’ John Verhovek and Beatrice Peterson.
Trump expected to fire off personal attacks as aides advise him to highlight policy issues
Trump's advisers have urged him to highlight his policy differences with Biden and present his case to the American people as to why he deserves another four years in office, sources said.
He trails Biden in the polls and this is his final opportunity to pitch himself to a large audience in primetime before Election Day.
Some top advisers would like to see a less combative, calmer Trump at the debate but concede that is an uphill battle given the president will focus on Biden’s family, which aides hope will get under Biden's skin, multiple sources said. However, other top advisers don't think that focus helps move any of the remaining swing voters.
Aides have also urged him not to interrupt Biden as much and have been re-watching the last debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016 as a guide as the White House views that debate as his strongest. The president's team also intends to heavily monitor the mute button usage, sources said.
Trump has held no mock debates leading up to his final face-off with Biden and has prepped -- in what one source described as a "very compartmentalized" way -- with different subject matter experts providing the president a briefing and preparing notes for the president on a particular topic. He has said his best preparation comes from his exchanges with the press.
The group advising the president has also slimmed down. For example, his former counselor Kellyanne Conway and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have taken less prominent roles.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Will Steakin