Donald Trump hammered Joe Biden as a failed career politician while his Democratic rival labelled him racist and neutralised the president’s main attack over alleged secret foreign earnings in their final TV debate.
The two men set out deeply contrasting approaches to the pandemic, immigration, climate change and energy in an informative debate last night that was a world apart from their raucous shouting match last month.
Both sides claimed victory after both candidates scored big hits that are likely to be replayed endlessly in the last 11 days before polling day, despite the fact that 47.5 million Americans have already voted in person or by post.
One of the deepest contrasts came on the pandemic with President Trump continuing to insist “we’re rounding the turn”, despite a resurgence across the country; only one of 50 states saw cases fall last week.
“We’re learning to live with it, we have no choice. We can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does,” Mr Trump, 74, said in response to Mr Biden pouncing on an earlier remark from the president that “it will go away”.
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Mr Trump added: “We can’t close up our nation or we won’t have a nation.”
Mr Biden hit back: “He says that we’re learning to live with it — people are learning to die with it. I am going to shut down the virus not the country. It is his ineptitude that caused the country to have to shut down in large part.”
Another clear difference came on energy and climate change, when Mr Trump challenged Mr Biden to state clearly where he stood on the oil industry. “I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Mr Biden said. Mr Trump exclaimed, “That’s a big statement,” and later warned states including Texas and Pennsylvania that Mr Biden would destroy the energy industry there. Mr Biden added: “It’s a big statement because the oil industry pollutes significantly . . . It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time.”
The Biden campaign later sought to clarify that he meant transitioning away from government subsidies for the oil industry, but the damage had been done and his words are sure to be used against him across the Rust Belt — states that are key to the election outcome.
Mr Biden is in another muddle over fracking. Mr Trump insisted that his opponent had said that he would end fracking but Mr Biden said that he had never done so and urged the president to play the videos. The Trump campaign quickly released video clips showing Mr Biden saying that he wanted to eliminate fracking.
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In a stark exchange of words over race, Mr Trump claimed that he had done more for black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, with the lowest unemployment levels before the pandemic. “As far as my relationships with all people, I think I have great relationships with all people. I am the least racist person in this room,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump also accused Mr Biden of failing during his time as vice-president to reverse the negative impact of his 1994 Crime Bill on high imprisonment rates among black Americans. “Why didn’t you do it in the eight years? You say ‘I am going to do this, I am going to do that’. You put tens of thousands of mostly black young men in prison. Why didn’t you do it? You know why — because you’re all talk and no action.”
Mr Biden hit back: “Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire. He started off his campaign coming down the escalator saying he was going to get rid of the Mexican rapists; he’s banned Muslims because they are Muslim.”
Referring to comments Mr Trump made about the far-right Proud Boys group during the last presidential debate, telling them to “stand back and stand by”, Mr Biden said: “Come on. This guy is a dog whistle about as big as the fog horn.”
It was Mr Biden who first raised Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, who has been digging for dirt on the Bidens for almost two years and has fed a cache of emails purportedly from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden to the media. One of them showed a Ukrainian businessman thanking Hunter for arranging a meeting with Joe Biden while he was vice-president, despite the candidate’s insistence that he never discussed his son’s business dealings. Another suggested that 10 per cent of the proceeds from a potential deal with a Chinese energy company in 2017 would go to “the big man”.
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Mr Biden said: “His buddy — well, look, I shouldn’t — I will — his buddy Rudy Giuliani, he’s being used as a Russian pawn. He’s being fed information that is Russian, that is not true. And then what happens? Nothing happens. And then we find out that everything is going on here about Russia is making sure that I do not get elected as the next president of the United States because they know that I know them, and they know me.”
This was an invitation to introduce a whole series of allegations that Mr Trump gratefully accepted. “Joe got $3½ million from Russia and it came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow, and it was the mayor of Moscow’s wife . . . I never got any money from Russia.” This was a reference to a payment allegedly received by Hunter Biden’s consultancy company from the wife of a former mayor of Moscow. “You were getting a lot of money from Russia, they were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are. But now it’s even worse, all of the emails, the horrible emails of the kind of money you were raking in, you and your family . . . I think you owe an explanation to the American people.”
Mr Biden said: “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. We learnt that this president paid 50 times the tax in China, has a secret bank account with China, does business in China . . . This is a president. I have released all my tax returns, 22 years, you have not released a single solitary year of your tax returns. What are you hiding? Foreign countries are paying you a lot.”
Mr Trump said that his taxes remained under audit so he could not release them — his stock answer for the past five years. He said that contrary to reports that he paid $750 in tax in 2016 and in 2017, he “pre-paid tens of millions of dollars over the last number of years”.
He told Mr Biden: “I don’t make money from China — you do. I don’t make money from Ukraine — you do. I don’t make money from Russia — you made $3½ millions, Joe. They even have a statement that we have to give 10 per cent to the ‘big man’. You’re the big man, I think. I don’t know. Maybe you’re not.”
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This all took place in a section devoted to foreign election interference. Mr Trump ended it by saying to Mr Biden: “You do live very well, you have houses all over the place.”
Mr Biden attempted to draw a line under the row about alleged foreign earnings by speaking directly to the camera and saying: “It is not about his family or my family, it is about your family and your family is hurting badly. If you’re a middle-class family you’re getting hurt badly right now. We should be talking about your family but that’s the last thing he wants to talk about.”
Mr Trump was quick to call this out as a rehearsed ploy. “That’s a typical political statement. Let’s get off this China thing . . . the family, around the table, just a typical politician when I see that. That’s why I got elected. Come on Joe you can do better than that.”
During a row over healthcare plans, Mr Trump accused Mr Biden of wanting to bring in “socialised medicine . . . Bernie Sanders tried it, it was impossible”.
Mr Biden, who said that America had been waiting four years for Mr Trump’s plan, retorted: “He is a very confused guy. He thinks he’s running against somebody else. He’s running against Joe Biden. I beat all the other people because I disagreed with them.”
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The pair clashed bitterly over recent reports that more than 500 immigrant children separated at the border from their parents could not be reunited with them. Mr Trump insisted that they were “so well taken care” of and said that the Obama administration built cages where some used to be kept. Mr Biden said: “They separated them from their parents, real tough . . . it violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”
A CNN poll of Americans who watched the debate made up of roughly equal thirds of Democrat, Republican and independent voters made the winner Mr Biden with 53 per cent compared to Mr Trump on 39 per cent.
Snap polling among debate watchers for YouGov America put Mr Biden 54 per cent and Trump 35 per cent, while Data Progress put Mr Biden on 52 per cent and Mr Trump on 41 per cent.
