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.


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Fact check: Biden off on Trump's 'plan' that could defund Social Security

BIDEN CLAIM: "The idea that we're in a situation that is going to destroy Medicare, this is the guy that the actuary of Medicare said ... if, in fact, he continues to withhold -- his plan to withhold the tax on Social Security, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023."

FACT CHECK: Biden’s claim is misleading on a number of fronts, but is rooted in an action Trump took and comments he made in August.

Trump signed an executive order in August that temporarily halted the collection of the payroll tax, a tax on wages split by workers and their employers. He subsequently asserted that he would like to permanently eliminate the tax.

In 2019, the tax financed 89% of Social Security. Workers and employers each contribute 6.2% of wages, while self-employed people pay the full 12.4%.

However, following Trump’s signing of the executive order, he has said publicly that he will draw from the government’s “general funds” to cover any lost funding for Social Security, a scenario the actuary accounted for in his response to the group of Democratic senators, telling them that the solvency of the program will be essentially unchanged if Trump follows through and actually proposes legislation akin to his public comments.

But since Trump issued his order, and despite Biden’s claims that Trump put forward a full-fledged “proposal,” Trump and the GOP have not unveiled more detailed legislation on how they would prevent the elimination of the payroll tax from impacting the financial security of Social Security.

In late August, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen and Chuck Schumer sent a letter to the chief actuary of the Social Security program asking what the effect of eliminating the payroll tax would be. In response, the chief actuary said he was not aware of any “hypothetical legislation” that had been proposed. In simply responding to the scenario posed by Senate Democrats, he said the Social Security benefit program would be depleted of funds by 2023 if there's no additional stream of funding identified to offset eliminating of the payroll tax.

What Trump has not said thus far is what programs could potentially be impacted by the redirection of funds from the government's general fund, only that he will protect Social Security benefits. The general fund finances the operations of the U.S. government, such as recording "funds received and distributed by the Department of the Treasury," and it "includes assets held by government-sponsored entities like Fannie Mae and the Internal Revenue Service."

-ABC News' John Verhovek


Fact check: Trump calls COVID-19 antibody treatment a 'cure.' It's not. 

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "And I will tell you that I had something that they gave me, a therapeutic, I guess they would call it, some people could say it was a cure. But I was in for a short period of time and I got better very fast or I wouldn't be here tonight."

FACT CHECK: Trump also repeated something he has said before, praising the antibody treatment he received a "cure."

But as of yet, there is no known "cure" for the novel coronavirus.

The antibody cocktail given to the president -- made by biotech company Regeneron -- is thought to be promising, though still in its experimental phase.

Regeneron's experimental treatment is a cocktail of two synthetic, pharmaceutical versions of what occurs naturally in the body to fight off infection. Late last month, Regeneron published positive, yet preliminary data for its cocktail treatment showing it improved symptoms in patients without severe disease.

While the Food and Drug Administration has not yet authorized it, Trump was granted access to it under "compassionate use," enabling him to get it outside of a clinical trial.

A Regeneron spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that Trump's medical staff reached out to the company for permission to use its monoclonal cocktail, and that it was cleared with the FDA.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman and Sasha Pezenik


Fact check: Trump falsely claims that kids aren't transmitting virus to teachers

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "I want to open the schools. The transmittal rate to the teachers is very small."

FACT CHECK: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance to note a "body of evidence is growing" that kids "might play a role in transmission." Still, the role children play in community transmission is not yet fully understood. 

In one recent study, the CDC found transmission is unclear: "Recent evidence suggests that children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings."

Schools haven't been studied as closely because many remain closed and not every school is reporting outbreaks. One concern is that children might be transmitting the virus without exhibiting symptoms, and testing people without symptoms remains limited.

Overall, officials say the lower transmission levels in a community, the less likely schools will spread the virus.

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty


Fact Check: Trump overstates vaccine readiness timeline  

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We have a vaccine that's coming. It's ready. It's going to be announced within weeks. And it's going to be delivered." ... "Johnson & Johnson is doing very well. Moderna is doing very well. Pfizer is doing very well. And we have numerous others."

FACT CHECK: A COVID-19 vaccine isn't ready right now. But it is true that two companies -- Pfizer and Moderna -- could seek emergency use authorization in November or December.

Like Pfizer and Moderna, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is also in late-stage studies, but Johnson & Johnson paused its trial earlier this month to investigate an unexplained illness.

As the chief adviser to the government vaccine distribution initiative Operation Warp Speed, Dr. Moncef Slaoui told ABC’s Bob Woodruff this week that if a vaccine is authorized before the end of the year approximately 20 million to 40 million doses of it will be stockpiled and ready for distribution for a limited population. At first, only high priority Americans, like those over 65, will have access, but by the springtime more Americans should have access.

Slaoui said that vaccine trials are going as fast as it’s safe to go, pledging to resign if he felt undue pressure from the White House. Slaoui said that by June 2021, it's possible "everybody" in the United States could have been immunized.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman and Sasha Pezenik


As candidate tackle race in America, Trump tells Biden: ‘I ran because of you’

To open the section on race in America, Welker described "the talk" to the candidates -- when parents of color, regardless of class or income, prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted by police for no reason other than the color of their skin -- giving the first question to Biden.

"I would like you to speak directly to these families," Welker said. "Do you understand why these parents fear for the children?"

"Yes, I do," said Biden. "The fact of the matter is there is institutional racism in America. We have always said, we've never lived up to it, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal. Guess what? We have never, ever lived up to it."

"We have to provide better economic opportunity, better education, better health care, better access to schooling, better access to borrow money to start businesses," Biden continued. "And I've laid out a clear plan as to how to do those things just to give people a shot. It's about accumulating the ability to have wealth as well as it is to be free from violence."

When the same question was posed to Trump, the president raised Biden's controversial 1994 crime bill and again said no one has done more for the Black community than Trump -- other than President Abraham Lincoln.

"Yes, I do," Trump said, before launching an attack on Biden. "And again, he's been in government 47 years. He never did a thing, except in 1994, when he did such harm to the Black community."

"Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump. And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done," he added.

Trump went on to rail against Biden for not making the changes he's pushing when he was in office and said he ran for office as a direct response to Obama and Biden.

"Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama. Because you did a poor job. If I thought you did a good job, I would have never run," Trump said. "I ran because of you."