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US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden collided on Thursday without destabilizing blows in their last debate 12 days before the election, seen by many as an opportunity for the Republican president to regain ground.
The 74-year-old White House tenant, lagging in the polls for Nov. 3, and the 77-year-old former vice president argued without much interruption, shouting or insults in a tone very different from last month’s chaotic televised duel.
Trump even praised the moderator, Kristen Welker, a White House correspondent for NBC News, who had a button to silence the contestants.
Criticism of Trump for his management of the covid-19 pandemic was Biden’s heaviest weapon, which predicted a “dark winter” for a country that mourns more than 220,000 deaths and where millions have lost their jobs.
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“Whoever is responsible for so many deaths should not remain president of the United States,” he said.
“We are fighting it very vigorously,” Trump replied, asserting that the vaccine “is on the way” and will be announced “in weeks.”
Trump, who arrived on stage without a mask in Nashville, Tennessee, three weeks after being even hospitalized for the coronavirus, spoke of his own recovery, once again claiming to be “immune.”
“He says we’re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it,” Biden replied.
Corruption, China and taxes
As expected, Trump asked Biden for “explanations” about the corruption allegations related to his son Hunter’s activities in China and Ukraine, when the Democratic candidate was Barack Obama’s vice president (2009-2017).
Biden rejected any wrongdoing. “I have never received a penny from abroad in my entire life,” he said. “Nothing was unethical.”
And, already on the offensive, he questioned Trump about having a bank account in China and the non-publication of his tax returns in the United States, after the leak of tax data showing that he paid a maximum of $ 750 in federal taxes to income for the last few years.
Trump responded that he has many bank accounts and that they are all registered. “I am a businessman doing business,” he said, noting that the account dated from 2013 and was closed in 2015.
Children in cages
Another high point was Biden’s accusation of Trump of carrying out a “criminal” policy by separating migrant children from their parents who had illegally crossed the border with Mexico, applied in 2018 but suspended amid a wave of outrage.
The plan, devised to contain the growing arrival of undocumented immigrants, the majority families from Central America, involved the separation of nearly 2,700 children from their parents. This week it emerged that the parents of 545 of those children could not yet be located.
Trump defended the policy of “zero tolerance” to irregular immigration and claimed that the children had been brought to the southern border by “coyotes” and by “bad people.” He also said that it was Obama, and not he, who was responsible for building the cages where the minors were locked up.
“I will be president of the United States, not vice president,” Biden said, vowing that in his first 100 days in office he will send a law to Congress to facilitate citizenship for more than 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Messages to Latinos
Shortly before the debate, Trump and Biden exchanged messages addressed to the 32 million Latinos eligible to vote, in segments broadcast by the Spanish-language network Telemundo.
“No one has done more for Hispanics,” said the president. In addition, he highlighted his closeness to the “Venezuelan community” in Florida, a key state to win the elections.
Biden said that Trump “is deporting thousands of Cubans and Venezuelans” to “dictatorial regimes.” “I will grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Venezuelans,” he promised.
Trump and Biden met after a chaotic first debate in late September in Cleveland, Ohio, in which Trump interrupted Biden nonstop and told him he was “not at all smart” while Biden called him a “liar.” and “clown”, and asked him to be quiet.
“Both candidates clearly learned important lessons from the inaugural debate,” said Aaron Kall, a professor at the University of Michigan and a specialist in presidential duels.
He added however that “with tens of millions of Americans voting early, it may be too late to fundamentally alter the next election.”
Some 47 million Americans have joined an unprecedented wave of early voting. Trump himself will cast his vote Saturday in Florida, his official place of residence when he is not in the White House.
Based on the RealClearPolitics average, Biden leads by 7.9 percentage points nationally, and by 4.1 points in key states.
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