The last debate before the final judgement: very even and quieter
After the rough first debate between the two candidates for the White House on 30 September and the cancellation of the second one due to Donald Trump's positive in COVID-19, the last face-to-face meeting between the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, took place this morning. The meeting, held in Nashville (Tennessee), was marked by the harsh accusations of corruption between the two candidates.
Twelve days before the elections and behind in the polls in a number of crucial states, and with 48 million Americans having already voted, the president was under more pressure than his opponent
The tone of this second debate was more restrained, both showing their irreconcilable differences on almost all issues, but speaking turns were respected.
Both gave disparate points of view on the coronavirus pandemic, the rescue of the economy, on strengthening the health system, climate change and the remodelling of the immigration system.
The debate started with the coronavirus. The United States is the country most affected by the pandemic with more than eight million people infected and more than 220,000 deaths. Even so, Trump defended his government's management claiming that it had prevented the deaths of 2.2 million people. "This is a global problem, but I have been congratulated by the leaders of many countries for what we have managed to do," the President said.
The Democratic candidate was adamant: "Anyone who is responsible for so many deaths cannot remain president," he said.
"He says we are learning to live with this. People are learning to die with it," he added.
In his defence, Trump wanted to use his experience after his illness. "I am immune, more and more people are recovering," said the President, who announced that he had contracted the disease two days after the first debate with Biden on 29 September in Cleveland.
"He will leave and as I say we are turning the corner," he said. He is leaving.
Regarding the vaccine, the New York magnate assured that there will be one "within weeks, and it will be distributed very quickly". Although questioned by the moderator of the debate, Kristen Welker, the President recognised that he has no "guarantee" that the vaccine will be distributed within this period, but immediately assured that he believes it will arrive "before the end of the year".
The former vice-president of Barack Obama (2009-2017) made reference to the news that appeared this week about the application of the separation policy to undocumented families on the border with Mexico two years ago, which involved the separation of 545 minors from their parents.
"More than 500 children came with their parents, were separated from them at the border to discourage them from coming in the first place," Biden said.
"It's a criminal thing (...) It makes us a laughing stock in the world and it violates every concept of who we are as a nation," Biden lamented, and Trump defended that his government is "trying very hard" to find these parents.
But this statement by the president is not true, since those who are looking for the children's parents are lawyers and court-appointed human rights groups.
"We are treating them so well, they are in facilities that are so clean," Trump said of children separated from their parents.
The two accused each other of doing more harm to the African-American community during the block on racism
Trump said he has done the most for the black community in U.S. history with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery in 1863.
Biden, for his part, reviewed Trump's history of racist comments and recalled that in 1989 he advocated the death penalty for a group of African-American teenagers known as the "Central Park Five" who were accused of a crime they did not commit.
Again Trump made Biden's son, Hunter Biden, one of his electoral weapons and it did not take long to bring up the business of the former vice president's son in the Ukraine and China. "If this is true, then he is a corrupt politician," Trump said of the Democratic candidate. He is relying on media reports that are allegedly based on data from a Hunter Biden computer.
Biden senior denied the veracity of these reports and pointed out that more than a hundred ex-intelligence agents claim that they are part of a Russian plan to damage the Democratic candidacy. The former Senator from Delaware countered by talking about Trump's taxes and his business ties with China, according to The New York Times a few days earlier.
