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 to early vote in Florida on Saturday
The White House announced Trump will vote early in Florida on Saturday.
"President Trump plans to early vote on Saturday in West Palm Beach, Florida," spokesman Judd Deere said.
It had been expected that the president would vote absentee, because even as he has railed against mail-in voting, he has also justified his own practice of voting absentee in the past.
-ABC News' Jordyn Phelps
Trump vs. Biden: On the issues
ABC News has broken down where each candidate stands on some of the key issues:
Election security and integrity
Early voting hits record numbers across the country
With early voting having kicked off in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., at least 47 million votes have already been cast in the 2020 general election as early voting data continues to break records across the country.
In 2016, there was a total of 47 million early votes cast, meaning the country has narrowly passed its 2016 early voting data with 12 days still left.
According to the United States Elections Project, spearheaded by University of Florida's political expert Michael McDonald, as of Thursday at 5 p.m. ET an unprecedented 47,095,528 voters have already cast their ballots and at least 85,133,505 ballots have been requested in early voting states.
TargetSmart, a Democratic firm that collects political data including early voting statistics, reports that 10 million voters who have already voted in the 2020 election did not participate in the 2016 election. Many of these early votes are coming from young voters as well as first time voters with individuals under 30 years old having cast 9.1% of early votes.
During an earlier press conference, TargetSmart predicted that there will still be an additional 40 million early votes as well as between 60-70 million votes on Election Day. Their prediction allots for at least 150 million ballots cast. In comparison, in the 2016 election, there were 138 million total votes.
-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh
Candidates to face off at a social distance between plexiglass partitions
Plexiglas partitions were placed on the debate stage next to each candidates' lectern -- already set up at least 12 feet apart -- as a coronavirus precaution for the second and final presidential debate in Nashville.
According to a source familiar with the debates, the partitions were added under the direction of the Cleveland Clinic as part of its responsibility to keep debate participants safe.
Plexiglass became an issue prior to the vice-presidential debate when the two campaigns squabbled over whether to have physical barriers separate the two candidates.
The insistence on barriers was initially met with resistance by Vice President Mike Pence's team, but they were ultimately used.
Fact check: Trump says Biden called China travel restrictions 'xenophobic,' but that's not clear
TRUMP'S CLAIM: “When I closed, he said, 'This is a terrible thing. You're xenophobic.' I think he called me racist, even, and -- because I was closing it to China. Now, he says I should have closed it earlier. It just -- Joe, it doesn't work."
FACT CHECK: While Trump claimed that Biden opposed his decision to ban most travel from China at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic and that he called the restrictions "xenophobic," the former vice president did not explicitly weigh in on the decision when it was announced on Jan. 31. He did call the president xenophobic minutes after the partial travel ban was announced, but did not call Trump a racist for the decision.
During a campaign event that same day in Fort Madison, Iowa, Biden discussed the growing concern over the COVID-19 outbreak and cautioned that Trump should let science "lead the way."
"In moments like this, this is where the credibility of a president is most needed as he explains what we should and should not do," Biden told the crowd at the event. "This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysterical xenophobia ... and fear-mongering to lead the way instead of science."
The comments came just minutes after the White House announcement, so it was unclear if Biden was referring to the decision specifically, but the former vice president did tweet a similar sentiment the next day.
"We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus," Biden posted. "We need to lead the way with science -- not Donald Trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."
Throughout March, Biden used the word "xenophobic" in various speeches and tweets to criticize the president labeling COVID-19 as the "China virus."
Biden did acknowledge the travel restrictions put in place by the Trump administration in a March speech, noting they "may" slow the spread.
"Banning all travel from Europe or any other part of the world may slow it, but as we've seen, it will not stop it. And travel restrictions based on favoritism and politics rather than risk will be counterproductive," Biden said.
Biden's campaign did not explicitly discuss the vice president's view of the ban until April.
"Joe Biden supports travel bans that are guided by medical experts, advocated by public health officials and backed by a full strategy," Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told CNN. "Science supported this ban, therefore he did too.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle