and they said trump didn't need to which is part of their narrative that biden is this daughter an old man who needs a lot of needs breaks who is not able to find words when he needs them and the drum campaign even went so far as to say that biden should take a drug test sort of hinting that he was on performance enhancing drugs that's an old ploy he tried that and with hillary clinton the last time around in 2016 she didn't bite either but right now those candidates are about to walk up to that stage it will be a little awkward in the sense that they won't shake hands there will be social distancing and we expect some swinging right off the bat yet john as you're saying accusations from both sides a few hours before the debate but also. importantly important to mention this debate is being held of course as the coronavirus pandemic continues so you touched upon this a little bit saying that there will be only 80 people in that debate hall which is very different to posterity but just talk us through how conditions are different

this time around. well you'll of course have all of those physical differences that we talked about the if this social distancing black hand shakes but interestingly this whole thing is being held in arena that was a covert hospital for a short while was a 1000 bed emergency hospital that was set up never used because ohio didn't end up needing it. perhaps the biggest difference this time around is that code 19 will be subject number one throughout the debate at least for joe biden donald trump isn't going to want to talk about it as much because he's faced a lot of criticism for his response but when they talk about other issues when they talk about the economy joe biden is very likely to say the reason the economy is just so bad right now is that 30000000 americans have lost their job since the coronavirus began and because in his words of donald trump's mismanagement it has

dragged out far longer than it should have had trump had a national plan a national lockdown a mask mandate all of the things that biden says he will institute as soon as he becomes president and this is happening of course in ohio this swing is of swing states which voted for. for barack obama in 2012 donald trump in 2016 by 8 percentage points and it has picked the ultimate winner of the presidency in every election since 1064 as a matter of fact in the past $32.00 elections it's missed only twice so this is a state both candidates really want in their corner and they're going to have to do it in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic under very unusual circumstances you know sounds like it and john what are the polls telling us ahead of this debate enough right before this debate we have we had the reporting from the new york time about trump's taxes on

anyone and paid allegedly $750.00 in the 1st year of his presidency and of course you have the controversy surrounding the supreme court nomination so how is all this playing out. all topics that are likely to come up tonight 1st of joe biden is in mildly a head in the polls but not comfortably ahead according to latest polls interestingly this could be one of the biggest perhaps the biggest debate in terms of viewership 75 percent of likely voters say they're going to be watching but most of them don't think it's going to change their minds according to a monmouth poll only 3 percent of them expect that their minds will be changed due to what happens in the debate and one of the subjects that's going to come up that wasn't on the original agenda is taxes that's because the new york times made that an element of the debate sort of by force by coming out with a story saying that donald trump has not paid taxes in 10 of the 15 years that

studied and in fact in 2016 the year he was elected and 2017 the 1st year of his presidency each year he paid only $750.00 in tax in federal taxes joe biden released his taxes just hours ago made a 940 something $1000.00 with his wife jill and paid about $300000.00 in taxes that's not terribly far from the 3032 percent and let me just jump in there and john because that is the moderate arab press wallace who just kicking off the debate let's listen and thank you john. between president donald j. trump and former vice president joe biden this debate as fonts are by the commission on presidential debates the commission has designed the format 6 roughly 15 minute segments with 2 minute answers from each candidate to the 1st question

then open discussion for the rest of the. both campaigns have agreed to these rules for the record i decide of the topics and the questions in each topic. i can assure you none of the questions has been shared with the commission or of the 2 candidates this debate is being conducted under health and safety protocols designed by the cleveland clinic which is serving as the health security advisor to the commission for all 4 debates out of precaution both campaigns have agreed the candidates will not shake hands at the beginning of tonight's debate the audience here and the hall has promised to remain silent no cheers no booze or other interruptions so we and more importantly you can focus on what the candidates have to say no noise except right now as we welcome the republican nominee president trump and the democratic nominee vice president bite. thank

goodness. thank. you. the much. talent a lot of people have been waiting for this night so let's get going our 1st subject is the supreme court president trump you nominated any kone barrett over the weekend to succeed the late ruth bader ginsburg on the court you say the constitution is clear about your obligation and the senate's to consider a nominated the court vice president biden you say that this is an effort by the president and republicans to jam through an appointment and what you call an abuse of power my 1st question to both of you tonight why are you right and make the

argument you make and your opponent wrong and where do you think a justice barrett would take the court president trump and that's for a segment you got 1st 2 minutes thank you very much chris i will tell you very simply we won the election elections have consequences we have the senate we have the white house and we have a phenomenal nominee respected by all top top academic good in every way good in every way in fact some of her biggest endorsers are very liberal people from notre dame and other places so i think she's going to be fantastic we have plenty of time even if we did it after the election itself i have a lot of time after the election as you know so i think that she will be outstanding she's going to be as good as anybody that has served in that court we really feel that we have a professor at notre dame highly respected by all said she is the single greatest student she's ever had he's. been a professor for a long time in

a great school and we just we won the election and therefore we have the right to choose here and very few people knowingly would say otherwise and by the way the democrats they would even think about not doing it if they had the only difference is that train do it faster there's no way they would give it up they had merit garland but the problem is they didn't have the election so they were stopped and probably that what happened in reverse also definitely would happen in reverse so we won the election and we have the right to do it chris president trump thank you same question to you vice president biden you of 2 minutes well 1st of all. thank you for doing this and we're going to do this mr prager joe. the american people have a right to have a say in who the supreme court nominee is not say kurz when they vote for a united states senators and when they vote for the president i states. they're not going to get that chance now because we're in the middle of an election already

election has already started tens of thousands of people have already voted and some of the things should happen is we should wait we should wait and see what the outcome of this election is because that's the only way the american people get to express their view is by who they elect as president who they elect as vice president now what's at stake here the president's made it clear he wants to get rid of the affordable care act he's been running on that he ran on that and he said many government is in the supreme court right now trying to get rid of. the affordable care act which will strip 20000000 people from having insurance health insurance now if it if they if it goes into court and and the justice and i have nothing i'm not opposed to the justices or she seems like a very fine person but she's written before she went the bench which is her right that she thinks that the affordable care act is not constitutional the other thing

is on the court and if and destruct down what happens women's rights are fundamentally changed once again a woman could be held any more money because she has a preexisting condition of pregnancy we're able to they're able to charge women more for the same exact procedure a man did gets and that ended when we in fact passed the affordable care act and there's 100000000 people who have preexisting conditions and they'll be taken away as well those preexisting condition is that insurance companies are going to love this and so it's just not appropriate to do this before this election if he wins the election and the senate as a democrat a republican then it he goes forward if not we should wait until february or iran and 100000000 people with preexisting conditions as far as a say is concerned the people already had this say they are. ok justice ginsburg said very powerfully very strongly at some point 10 years ago or so she said

a president and the senate is elected for a period of time but a president's elected for 4 years we're not elected for 3 years i'm not elected for 3 years so we have the senate we have a president elected to the next story in that period of time during that period of time we have an opening i'm not elected for 3 years i'm elected for 4 years and a 100 or in his girdle just 100000000 people is totally wrong i don't know where you got that number the bigger problem that you have is that you're going to extinguish 180000000 people with their private health care that that very simply not true well you said no go to socialist not only just social and that's a start we're not going to john that we're now into open just got open discussion just gotten yes i had vice pres number one he he knows that what i've proposed what i've proposed is that we expand obamacare and we increase it we do not wipe any and one of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination

that i won were saying that biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance till they can and they do they will under my proposal not what you've said and it's not without a party has sat is simply a party doesn't say your party wanted to go socialist medicine already is an emotional israel now i am and they are going to dominate you joe you know that i am the democratic party right now the platform of the doubt according to harness is what i in fact approved of what i approved of now here's the deal the deal is that it's going to wipe out preexisting condition by the way the 2200000000 and the 200000 people that have died on his watch there go how many of those and that survive over 7000000 people that contract a covert what does it mean for them going forward if you strike down the affordable care act and you know you've had this 308000. military people dying because you couldn't provide them proper health care in the military so don't tell me about how to talk about and if you were here you know it was that he didn't want to do it it

would be 2000000 people because you were very late in the draw you don't know who you are and china which was heavily infected you don't want me to ban are at work and tell me what it is heavily in france without you would have been much later just a problem then later mr probably talking about 2000000 people who do not brag about it as i do not a writer we're going to talk about colbert in the next segment but well ahead let me finish the point is that the president also is opposed to roe v wade that's on the ballot as well in the court in the court and so that's also at stake right now and so they're lection it's all you know it's on the ballot i lie isn't on the ballot because big why isn't it has on the ballot it's on the ballot in the morning said the court well there's nothing happening there donna we don't know her view on roe v wade i don't you well all right but all right let's talk. we've got a lot to one pack here gentlemen we got a lot of time so. on health care and with that we'll come back to roe v wade mr

president that the supreme court will hear a case a week after the election in which the trump administration along with 18 state attorneys general are seeking to overturn its right obamacare to end obamacare you have spent the last week because that want to give i would help if i may ask the question sir your health care over the last 4 years you have promised to repeal and replace obamacare but you have never in these 4 years come up with a plan a comprehensive plan is that obamacare or say if well i got it out and i'm going to go in and i'm going to give you an argument i got to go to the individual mandate which was that it's not a comprehensive that is absolutely a big thing that was i was born asked by a mixer chris are there waiting words now today but i mean i asked mike well i'll ask joe i know july mandate was the most. unpopular i asked back to vote i mean i got rid of i'd like to do a press that people in an audience moderate or in the us to say and i would like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer go ahead from you in the

course of these 4 years have never come up with a comprehensive plan to replace obamacare and just this last thursday you signed a largely symbolic executive order that's attacked people with preexisting conditions 5 days before this debate so my question sir is what is the farm health care plan well 1st of all i guess i'm debating you not him but that's ok i'm not surprised let me just tell you something because nothing symbolic i'm cutting drug prices i'm going with favorite nations which no president has occurred to do because you're going against big pharma drug prices would be coming down 80 or 90 percent you could have done it during your 47 year period in government but you didn't do it nobody's done it so we're cutting health care about all of the things that we've done here is the answer i give an example insulin it's going to it was destroying families destroying people the cost i'm getting it for so cheap it's

like water you want to know the truth so cheap take a look at all of the drugs that what we're doing prescription drug prices we're going to allow our governors now to go to other countries to buy drugs because one favorite just a tiny fraction of this is open discussion i'll be absolutely i mean it isn't the kind of a tough there you'll be happy i'm about to pick up on one of your points to ask the vice president which as he points out that you would like to add a public option to obamacare and the argument that he makes and other republicans now take is that that is going to end private insurance it is not well. if i thought i'd ask the question and it will end in part i says by the way it will and private insurance and 48 a government takeover of health it does not it's only for those people who are so poor they qualify for medicaid they can get that free in most states except governors who want to deny people who are poor medicaid anyone who qualifies for medicare would. be medicaid would automatically be enrolled in the public option

the vast majority of the american people would still not be in that option number will tell you about going to it with bernie sanders are left on the manifesto we knew it would manifest you socialized medicine look something like they're an emotional the fact of the matter is i beat bernie sanders not by much but beat him a whole have a lot i'm not sure i'm here to stand face mohan his would of level 2 days early you would have lost every problem who knows how to answer as they got a very long hours a day oh i got very lucky i mean you're very lucky tonight as well and tonight i'm going to wash your because there's a deal there's a deal the fact is that everything he's saying so far is simply a lie i'm not here to call out his lies everybody knows he's a liar but you know i just want to play a general tell you that i want to make sure of who i did last night last 1st and i . i want to make sure i didn't can you let him finish there he don't know how to do that he has been oh you picked be surprised but on guy the wrong night at the wrong

time listen you agreed with things and he said or sent them out of all i don't know but not him it's a value there is no manifesto numbers let him speak mr number 2 just last the left number 2 you just lost the left you agreed with bernie sanders on a plan how about if salut leave oaksterdam in either one that is doing all it necessary to you know have the new socialized medicine mr president you know what he is not for any help for people needing health care because his because he in fact already has cost 10. 1000000 people their health care that they had from employers because it is recession number one number 2 there are 20000000 people getting health care through obamacare now if he wants to take it away he won't ever look in and say that's what he wants to do take it away i want to give numbers better health care at much lower prices because i know he has no how he doesn't know how to already fixed a is never already affiliated to what extent he has never heard

a single i don't know but probably does that often and i realize if you're also picking up a sign outside it's to expect let the president's go ahead sir obamacare is no good we made it better and i had a choice to make very early on we took away the individual mandate we guarantee preexisting conditions but took away the individual mandate this is this is the way it is and that destroyed that if they should even call it obamacare then i had a choice to make do i let my people run it really well or badly if i run it badly they'll probably blame him but they'll blame me but more importantly when help people ok i said you got to run it so well that's it and i just had a meeting with them they said the problem is no matter how well you run obamacare it's a disaster it's too expensive. that is doesn't work ourselves pee wee wee you know what you know bit of it i want to get rid of i understand etc but i have to keep having to give you roughly equal time buddies let the vice president. he has no plan for health care because we can send planes he sends out wishful thinking he

can has executive orders have no power he hasn't lower drug costs for anybody he's been promising the health care plan since he got elected he has none like almost everything else he talks about he does not have a plan he doesn't have a plan and the fact is this man doesn't know what he's talking about once i one final question for you mr vice president. if senate republicans we were talking a little about the supreme court here if senate republicans go i had and confirm justice barrett there has been talk about ending the filibuster or even packing the court batting to the 9 justices there you call this a destruction by the president but in fact it wasn't brought up by the president it was brought up by some of your democratic colleagues in light of saying the congress so my question to you as you have refused in the past to talk about it are you willing to tell the american people tonight whether or not you will support

either ending the filibuster or packing the court ever position i take and that that will become the issue the issue is the american people should speak you should go out and vote you're in voting now vote and let your senators know how you get on are you feeling that vote now that in fact they were sure you in fact let people know it is going to senator i should i'm not going to answer the question to answer that because you ask the nicer to me is yes is the radical left what you show me as a man who isn't your list you know there's a reason you know right gentlemen is i think this is one of us on the president actually cool at the event not to give a let me have ended this segment we're going to move on to the 2nd segment it was really a pretty productive segment. keep yappin man the people understand she faced shorty 7 years you've done nothing then do so all right the 2nd subject is a covert 19 which is an awfully serious subject so. let's try to be serious about it we have had more than 7000000 cases of corona virus and the united states and

more than 200000 people have died even after we produce a vaccine experts say that it could be months or even years before we come back to anything approaching normal my question for both of you is based on what you have said and done so far and what you have said you would do starting in 2021 why should the american people trust you more than your opponent to deal with this public health crisis going forward in this case the question goes to you 1st sir 2 minutes uninterrupted good lawyer. 200000 dead as you said over 7000000 in fact in the united states we in fact have 5 percent were 4 percent of the world's population 20 percent of the deaths 40000 people to a day are contracting covert in addition to that about between 715

a 1000 people there dying when he was presented with that number he said it is what it is is what it is because you are who you are that's why it is the president has no plan he hasn't laid out anything he knew all the way back in february how serious this crisis was he knew it was a deadly disease what did he do is on tape is acknowledging you knew it he said he didn't tell us or give people a warning of it because he didn't want to panic the american people you know panic he panicked in addition to that what did he do he would in any we were insisting that the chinese the people we had of the ground in china should be able go to one and determine for themselves how dangerous this was he did not even as she to do that he told us what a great job she was doing he said we owe him a debt of gratitude for being so transparent with us and what did he do then he

then did nothing and he waited and waited and waited he still doesn't have a plan i laid out or i took it as march exactly what we should be doing and i laid out again in july what we should be doing we should be providing all the protective gear possibly should be providing the money the house has passed in order to be able to go out and get people the help they need to keep their businesses open open schools and cost a lot of money you should get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap and get in your golf course and go in the oval office and bring together the democrats republicans and find what needs to be done now to save lives so if we would have listened to play about 10 minutes or if we would have listened to. the country would have been left wide open millions of people would have died not 200001 person is too much it's china's fault it should have never happened they stopped it from going in but it was china's fault and by the way when you talk about numbers you don't know how many people died in china you don't know how many people died in

russia the internet how many people died in india didn't exactly give you a straight count just so you understand but if you look at what we've done i closed it and you said he sent a phobic he's a racist and he's in a phobic because you don't think you're native clothes in our country not just letterman says you didn't think we should have close our country because you thought it was too it was terrible you wouldn't close that for another 2 months by my doing it early in fact dr found she said president trump saved thousands of lives many of you a democrat governor said president trump did a phenomenal job we worked with the governor to really go take a look at the governors said i did a phenomenal job most of them said that in fact people that would not be necessarily on my side said that president trump did a phenomenal job we did we got the gallons we get the masks we made the ventilators you wouldn't have made ventilators and now we're weeks away from a vaccine we're doing therapeutics already fewer people are dying when they get

sick far fewer people are dying we've done a great job the only thing i haven't done a good job and that's because of the fake news no matter what you say to him they give you a bad press and it's just fake news they give you good press they give me bad press because that's the way it is unfortunate but let me just say somebody who care i've got used to it but i'll tell you joe you could never have done the job that we did you don't have it in your blood you could have never done that you know i know how to do the job i know how to get the job where you don't do very well and swine flu h one n one you were a disaster your own chief or it stands out in disaster t.v. 1000 people died not 200000 of them we have no harry anomic less i sure you made a good article as no arrests and he's made a point by now and there was no one. no we didn't shut down the economy this is his economy speech he shut down the reason it shut down is because look you folks at home how many of you up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died of covert how many of you are in

a situation where you lost your mom or dad and you couldn't even speak to him you had a nurse holding the phone up so you could in fact say goodbye at a loss far too many people are far more people and you would have been by the way slayer own had his own his own c.d.c. director says we could lose many is another $200000.00 people between now and the end of the year and he held to be said if we just wear a mask we can save half those numbers just just a mask and by the way in terms of the the whole notion of a vaccine we're for a vaccine but we i don't trust him at all nor do you i know you don't but we trust as a scientist you don't try to suck on a sour johnson fascism we have got you by the way all men and women love it let me move on to questions about the future because you both have touched on one of the 2 of the questions i'm going to ask to focus in on the future 1st president trump you have repeatedly either contradicted or been a dog's with some of your governments on top scientists the whip before last the head of the centers for disease control dr redfield said it would be summer before

that the vaccine would become generally available to the public you said that he was confused and mistaken those are your 2 words but dr sly way the head of your operation warp speed has said exactly the same thing are they both wrong well i've spoken to the companies and we can have it a lot sooner so very political thing because people like this would rather make it political than save lives it is a very political thing i've spoken to pfizer has spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to we have great moderna johnson and johnson and others they can go faster than that by a lot become very political because the left or i don't know if i thought of your last i don't know what i think you had a pure opera. the words of a doctor as i disagree with him no i disagree with him and he didn't say that he said it could be there but it could also be much in a bad i'm in my office 2 days out he talked about the summer sir before it's generally available to us i said it is a possibility that we'll have the answer before november 1st it could also be you

know what it's actually a valid but not well we're going to deliver it right away we have the military all set up logistically they're all set up we have our military that delivers soldiers and they can do 200000 a day they're going to be this is a man its walls and by easter this should be gone away by the warm weather and be gone iraq is like america and by the way maybe you could inject some bleach in your arm and that would take care of it this is a so we said sarcastic that was you know that i would have said ken so here's the deal this man is talking about a vaccine every serious every serious company is talking about maybe having the vaccine done by the end of the year but the distribution of that vaccine will not occur until sometime beginning to the middle of next year to get it out if we get the vaccine and pray god we will make god we mr vice president to pick up that will have i see i'm still going to make up on this question though you say the public can trust the scientists but they can't trust president trump in fact he said that

again tonight your running mate senator harris goes further saying the public health experts quote will be muzzled will be suppressed given the fact that polls already show that people are concerned about the back saying on a reluctant to take a are you and your running mate senator heris contributing to that fear no more than the question you used asked that you pointed out he puts pressure and disagrees with his own scientists but you are saying about her side and the rest as i don't can't trust the sound well no no you can't trust the scientists he says she did say that you can see how she said that public health will be muzzled we'll get a process well the that's what he's going to try to do but there's millions of scientists. as thousands of scientists out there like here at this great hospital that don't work for him their job doesn't depend on him that's not there the people there and by the way to the scientists that are in charge the way they will have the vaccine very says it doesn't but you believe for

a moment what he's telling you in light of all the lies he's told you about the whole issue.