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The second and last televised confrontation between the two main candidates for the presidency of the United States took place Thursday night in Nashville – in Italy it was the early hours of Friday – and the first news is that it was a real confrontation: unlike the first debate. Characterized by a chaotic course, mutual insults and continuous interruptions, Donald Trump and Joe Biden debated harshly but without overlap; and they were criticized harshly but without serious offenses. Both came out better than the first: Trump was more consistent and less instinctive, and delivered a clear and disciplined political message; Biden was more lucid and energetic, and did not give the feeling of fragility that he had in the first confrontation.
However, it is not clear whether it can be said that one of the two has “won” the other: and above all it does not seem that there have been moments or answers or errors on one side or the other capable of changing the course and inertia of the election campaign, when more than 40 million Americans have already voted – by mail or in advance – and there are only 12 days left to vote on November 3. It is a problem especially for Donald Trump, to whom the polls today attribute a great disadvantage: if the outgoing president can go home convinced at least that the situation has not worsened, he does not seem to have had the evening he needed to give the push necessary for a difficult comeback.
The televised confrontation was more orderly above all because of Trump’s change in strategy, who had lost more ground at the polls after the continuous interruptions and insults of the first debate. But not only that: the independent commission that organizes the debates has introduced a new rule, which allowed both candidates to speak for two minutes after each question with the guarantee of not being interrupted, since the opponent’s microphone was off. . Only after the initial two responses were both microphones open, but even in that context there were few interruptions. Finally, moderator Kristen Welker – a political journalist for NBC News, the second African-American woman to moderate a presidential standoff – was skillful and decisive in managing the moment of debate and governing the conversation.
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In the first segment, inevitably there was talk of the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences, a subject that alone upset the electoral campaign and caused a large drop in the consensus of the president. Trump insisted that things must return to normal and we must “live with the virus”, because “the cure cannot do more harm than the disease”; He said his measures saved millions of lives and blamed China. “I take full responsibility, but it is not my fault,” he said.
Biden pressed him with much more conviction than in the first confrontation: “He says we must learn to live with the virus; We are learning to die from this virus! ». And then: “Dear teachers, have you heard? You can rest assured, he says, because only some of you will die.
Subsequently, there was talk of foreign interference in the US electoral campaign: a particularly sensitive issue for US politics after the impact in 2016 of the cyberattacks ordered by the Russian government against the Hillary Clinton committee, the suspicions of collaborations between the Trump committee and Russia, which cost Trump a federal investigation and Trump’s notorious attempt to discredit Biden by pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into him, costing him an impeachment proceeding. And even more relevant in light of recent attempts by Russia, Iran and China to influence the election campaign.
Biden also attacked this, accusing Trump of being soft on Russia and having debts to many foreign countries, recalling the scoop on the New York Times about the secret current account that Trump would have in China (news that Trump has not denied and in fact seemed to admit) and inviting him to release his tax returns. “You pay more taxes abroad than in the United States. What do you have to hide? ». Trump accused Biden of making shady deals with China and Ukraine through the mediation of his son Hunter, who has been the subject of so far unfounded accusations and suspicions for months because of positions and advice obtained while his father was vice president.
More generally, Trump tried to present himself as an outsider, as he had in 2016, despite being the president of the United States today – and repeatedly recalled Joe Biden’s forty-year political career by asking him why he didn’t do all of them. things in the past. what it promises to do. At one point, Biden tried to get out of the conversation about his son Hunter like this: “It’s not about my family or his family, it’s about yours. To you who do not have money to change the tires of your car or pay the mortgage or the university of your children. Trump replied: “This is the talk of a politician, you speak like a politician: only words and not deeds.”
The more orderly course of the conversation allowed for many more topics to be covered than in the first confrontation. When it comes to health care, Trump said Barack Obama’s health care reform is a disaster, and it remained a disaster despite his trying to make it work. He promised new reform in the event of re-election, promising that he would not allow insurance companies to deny health coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. Biden asked him why he has not reformed it in these four years and described how he intends to complement it with a “public option”: a public insurance plan, offered by the government at controlled prices, that is available to anyone who wants to choose and compete. . to private insurance.
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And there was also talk of work, and especially the minimum wage. Today, the federal minimum wage – thus the minimum that all states must meet – is $ 7.25 an hour: a very low figure, which has not been updated since 2009 and which keeps many Americans in poverty level maybe they have a full time job. Individual states can then decide whether to apply a higher minimum wage. Biden wants to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour. “All these essential workers that we have applauded in recent months deserve a higher salary.” Trump said he believes that it is not time to burden companies with new costs, but that he would leave the matter in the hands of individual states.
On immigration, the known positions of Republicans and Democrats were compared: the former focused primarily on strengthening the border and expelling illegal immigrants, the latter judging immigration as a fundamental piece of the identity of the United States. – a country where everyone, including Trump and Biden, is an immigrant or the children of immigrants – and an economic opportunity. Biden blamed Trump for the hundreds of children separated from their parents who have yet to return to their families; Trump responded that children are treated very well.
The immigration discussion turned the debate toward racial issues. The moderator asked Trump and Biden if they realized why parents of black children from all walks of life have to do something with their children at some point in their lives. “the conversation“,” The speech “, to explain that the police could target them for no reason and instruct them on how to behave. Trump did not address the issue directly, but said that the US economy before the pandemic had also created the best conditions for African Americans, and that is why he called himself the president who did the most for blacks in the country. history, “possibly excluding Abraham Lincoln” (the president abolished slavery). Biden criticized, “Our Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents of all time,” and then answered the question about African American parents.
An example of how much more disciplined Trump was than in the first confrontation: “His last trick was to be a little less himself,” summarized the New York Times – is the constant reference to facts related to Pennsylvania, one of the main states of the scale. In one passage, he accused Biden, who was born in Pennsylvania, of leaving the state: but Biden left Pennsylvania as a child after his father was fired and moved to Delaware. When it comes to energy and climate, Trump accused Biden of wanting to ban fracking, the extraction of gas and oil from rocks, an economically very important activity in Pennsylvania.
Biden said he did not want to ban fracking, but wanted to make it safer and cleaner, and then said the country needs to “start a transition that makes it less dependent on oil.” This is already happening, but Trump emphasized the weight of Biden’s phrase: “This is a great statement.” If environmentalists and Democratic Party voters are happy with this stance, Trump expects skepticism from the hundreds of thousands of Americans who work in the oil industry, especially in states like Texas.
For the first time since 1996, the second televised confrontation between the two main candidates for the US presidency was also the last: the third confrontation should have taken place last week, the only one in which the candidates would have been asked questions. voter riots – which was later canceled when Trump did not accept the proposal to organize it with the two candidates in two different places, given that the president of the United States had been infected with the coronavirus.
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