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NASHVILLE: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden renewed his attacks on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the final debate on Thursday (October 22), seeking to reinforce his leadership in opinion polls with 12 days left for the elections of the November 3.
The televised debate, taking place at Belmont University 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 turning 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 race is much tighter in some states where the election is likely to be decided.
READ: Trump and Biden will lead the duels of the city councils, as the first voters flood the polls
Trump is currently behind Biden by eight percentage points, the latest Reuters / Ipsos national poll showed.
A record 45 million Americans have already cast their votes, dwarfing the total early voting in the 2016 election, before the debate.
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 almost 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.
