With time running out, Trump was again forced to defend the coronavirus approach in the debate.

United States President Donald Trump and Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden arrive on stage to participate in the final debate of the 2020 United States presidential campaign at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, on October 22, 2020. REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

NASHVILLE – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden renewed his attacks on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Thursday’s final debate, seeking to bolster his lead in opinion polls with 12 days left for the Nov.3 election.

The televised meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, represented one of the last opportunities for Republican Trump to reshape a campaign dominated by a pandemic that has killed more than 221,000 people in the United States and devastated the economy.

“Anyone who is responsible for so many deaths should not remain president of the United States of America,” Biden said.

Trump, who was much more restrained than in the first debate in September when he spoke aggressively about Biden, defended his approach to the outbreak, claiming that the worst of the pandemic was in the past.

“We are just around the corner,” said Trump, who has played down the virus for months. “It goes”.

Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of the president’s response to the virus. Several U.S. states, including the state of Ohio, which has not taken place in the election, reported record single-day increases in COVID-19 infections on Thursday, evidence that the pandemic is accelerating again.

Although Trump is far behind former Vice President Biden in national polls, the contest is much closer in some states where the election is likely to be decided.

Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points in the latest Reuters / Ipsos national poll, conducted Oct. 20-22. His lead has narrowed slightly in recent weeks and he’s back to where he was in September, before Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19.

Relatively few voters have yet to make up their minds, and Trump’s window to influence the outcome may be closing. A record 47 million Americans have already cast their votes, dwarfing the early voting total for the 2016 election.

The first segment of the debate was far more civilized than the first candidate showdown in September, when constant interruptions from Trump and exchanges of personal insults derailed the night.

As a result, each candidate’s microphone on Thursday was turned off while his opponent made a two-minute introductory statement on a topic. However, even after the microphones were turned back on during the discussion periods, the candidates largely allowed themselves to speak to each other.

Biden blamed Trump for shirking responsibility for the pandemic.

“I take full responsibility,” Trump said. “It’s not my fault he came here, it’s China’s fault.”

Trump said Thursday that a vaccine was close to being ready, and said approval would be announced within “weeks” before acknowledging it was not a guarantee. Most experts, including administration officials, have said that a vaccine is unlikely to be widely available until mid-2021.

Before the debate began, the Trump campaign noted that the often bellicose president would attack the 77-year-old Biden for failing to accomplish more during his nearly half-century of public service and concentrating on what the 74-year-old Trump does. , alleges that they were corrupt practices of the Biden family.

Trump invited as a guest Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Biden’s son Hunter, who claims to have evidence of business ties between the Biden family and a Chinese state-owned company. He collaborated in an investigation by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which last month said it found no evidence that Joe Biden exercised undue influence on American politics.

‘Desperate and pathetic farce’

In a statement, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, Andrew Bates, called Bobulinski’s presence a “hopeless and pathetic charade.”

Trump has repeatedly accused Joe and Hunter Biden of unethical practices in China and Ukraine. No evidence has been verified to support the corruption allegations, and Biden called them false and discredited.

Trump’s effort to uncover dirt on Hunter Biden’s business ties in Ukraine led to the president’s impeachment.

Trump and his children have been accused of conflicts of interest of their own since he entered the White House in 2017, most related to the family’s real estate and hotel businesses in the United States and abroad.

Thursday’s surprise guest recalled a Trump debate with rival Hillary Clinton in 2016 in which she invited women who accused her husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual misconduct as guests. Trump has faced similar accusations, which he has denied.

Before the debate, Biden’s aides said he needed to prevent Trump from getting under his skin with attacks on his family. A Biden adviser said his advisers wanted him to counter Trump without appearing non-presidential.

The controversial first debate, when the two men exchanged insults, was watched by at least 73 million viewers. Trump rejected another planned debate last week after he switched to a virtual format following his COVID-19 diagnosis.

On Thursday, the committee overseeing the debate removed the Plexiglass barriers separating the candidates after Trump provided evidence that he had tested negative for COVID-19, a source familiar with the matter said.

The temperature of the approximately 200 attendees was checked before entering the venue, and all were required to wear a medical mask at all times.

Topics for discussion were to include the pandemic, race relations, climate change, and national security. The Trump campaign argued that the entire debate should focus on foreign policy.

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