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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To win the presidency, candidates have to hit the magic number of 270 electoral votes. The Electoral College comprises a total of 538 members, with each state getting a total number of electoral votes equal to its congressional delegation and three additional electoral votes for District of Columbia.
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.
Biden and Trump on shutdowns
Biden responded to concerns that another shutdown could harm the economy, already hurting from closures caused by the pandemic.
"I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country," he said. "It's his ineptitude that caused the virus -- caused the country to have to shut down in large part. Why businesses have gone under, why schools are closed, why so many people have lost their living and why they're concerned."
After attacking Trump for golfing during the pandemic, Biden said he hadn't ruled out additional shutdowns if necessary.
"You need standards," he said. "The standard is if you have a reproduction rate in a community that's above a certain level, everybody says slow up. More social distancing. Do not open bars and do not open gymnasiums."
In rebuttal, Trump criticized Democratic governors in several states for shutting down in response to the pandemic.
"They're shut down so tight and they're dying," he said. "They're dying. And he supports all these people. All he talks about is shutdowns. No, we're not going to shut down. And we have to open our schools."
In an example of how young people have better outcomes with coronavirus, the president mentioned his son Baron who tested positive.
"By the time I spoke to the doctor the second time, he was fine. It just went away. Young people -- I guess it's their immune system," he said.