US election debate: Key takeaways from Donald Trump and Joe Biden's final showdown

Donald Trump and Joe Biden met for the second and final time on a debate stage ahead of the US election in less than two week's time.

The Republican president and Democratic challenger Mr Biden faced off in Nashville, Tennessee, more than three weeks after their first meeting.

And trailing in opinion polls ahead of the vote on November 3, Mr Trump was under pressure to revive his flagging campaign.

The rivals went head to head on topics including the coronavirus pandemic, election hacking, tax returns, race relations, and foreign policy during the clash.

US Elections 2020: Trump v Biden Final Presidential Debate

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Here are some of the key takeaways from the debate:

The mute button

After the first Trump-Biden debate in September devolved into a chaotic shouting match, each candidate's microphone was muted to allow the other to speak without interruption for two minutes at the outset of each 15-minute debate segment.

The mute button was not used, however, for the remaining 11 minutes of each segment, so there was still plenty of opportunity for the candidates to mix it up.

Whether thanks to the mute button or not, the debate was relatively civil as the two candidates made their opening statements and allowed each other to answer questions from moderator Kristen Welker without interruption.

Mr Trump in particular seemed to be on his best behaviour. Viewers largely panned his performance in the first debate, in which he repeatedly interrupted Mr Biden.

Pandemic takes centre stage

Shortly after the last debate, Mr Trump contracted Covid-19 and spent three days in a hospital. The pandemic, which has killed more than 222,000 people in the US, remains the top issue for voters and Biden has repeatedly accused Trump of mismanaging the crisis.

"I caught it, I learned a lot. Great doctors, great hospitals," Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump appeared to make news by promising that a vaccine for the virus would be ready "within weeks," before back peddling. "It's not a guarantee," he clarified. He promised that the country was "rounding the corner," even as several US states reported record one-day increases.

Mr Biden waved his black face mask as a prop, an implicit rebuke of a president who has famously been reluctant to wear one. "If we just wore masks, we could save 100,000 lives," he said.

Organisers had planned to install a plexiglass barrier between the two candidates to reduce the risk of infection, but they took it down after Trump tested negative for the virus.

Members of the Trump family did not wear masks at the last debate. For this one, they arrived with masks on.

Race relations

Former vice president Mr Biden called Mr Trump "one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history".

He said the president "pours fuel on every racist fire" and noted that at his last debate the president would not condemn white supremacy and told an extremist group to "stand down and stand by".

Mr Trump portrayed himself as a champion of black people, repeating his standard line that no president has done more for black Americans aside from Abraham Lincoln.

He also accused Mr Biden and Mr Obama of ignoring issues of racial justice when they were in power, telling the former vice president: "You've done nothing but the crime bill which put tens of thousands of black men in jail."

Mr Biden said he has been trying to change drug sentencing laws that disproportionately harm African Americans and added the public knows his record.

Touting criminal justice reform and opportunity zone bills he signed, the president said: "I am the least racist person in this room."

Election hacking and tax returns

A question about foreign election interference quickly turned personal, as Mr Trump accused Biden's son Hunter of improper business dealings with Ukraine and China.

An investigation by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee turned up no evidence to support that allegation.

In fact, the only result has been Trump's impeachment last year by the House of Representatives for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Mr Biden.

Mr Biden flatly denied any impropriety on his part, and contrasted his willingness to release his tax returns with Mr Trump's refusal to do so. "What are you hiding?" he asked. "Release your tax returns, or stop talking about corruption."

Mr Trump was left to air old grievances about the Internal Revenue Service, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and others who he thought were treating him unfairly. "I get treated very badly by the IRS, very unfairly," he said.

Mr Biden eventually sought to turn the discussion away from their personal finances. Addressing viewers, he said: "It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family. And your family's hurting badly," he said.

Immigration

Mr Trump defended his administration's separation of immigrant children from their families following detentions along the US-Mexico border.

The president said children are often brought across the border not by families but "by coyotes and lots of bad people".

The American Civil Liberties Union told a judge this week that there were still 545 children separated from their parents from 2018.

Mr Trump said his government had constructed more than 400 miles of his promised border barrier. He also said "They built cages", referring to Obama-era facilities depicted in media reports during the separations.

Mr Biden disputed Mr Trump's answer, saying kids "were ripped from" their families in 2018.

As he has done since the primary campaign, Mr Biden defended the immigration policy of the government under Mr Obama, admitting that it "took too long to get it right".

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