this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm christian fraser. the final us presidential debate ended a short time ago. donald trump and joe biden clash in the final televised debate for the us presidential elections. there were fewer interruptions this time but they clashed over each other‘s personal taxes and allegations about biden family business affairs. people were saying $750. i asked them a week ago and i said, what did i pay? so, you prepay tens of millions of dollars. i pre—paid my taxes. page 50 times the tax in china asa page 50 times the tax in china as a secret bank account with china, does business in china.

and in fact is talking about me taking money? i have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever. we'll bring you all the important moments — and our analysts will tell us who made the best impression on voters in the key battleground states. hello. donald trump and joe biden have had their last face to face encounter before november's presidential election — and it was a much more mild—mannered event compared to the previous one. the two clashed over how to handle the coronavirus pandemic, with mr biden saying the president's policies had contributed to the high death rate in the us. mr trump went on the attack over newspaper allegations about the biden family's business connections. president trump seized on recently—released emails allegedly taken off a laptop belonging to biden‘s son hunter — and newspaper claims

that the former vice president himself had benefited from his son's business affairs. i have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. we learned that this president paid 50 times the tax in china, as a secret bank account with china, does business in china and in fact is talking about me taking money? i have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever. ever. number one. number two, this is a president, i have released all that my tax returns. 22 years. go look at them. 22 years of my tax returns. you have not released a single solitary year of your tax return. what are you hiding and why are you unwilling? foreign companies are paying you a lot. russia is paying you a lot. china is paying you a lot. china is paying you a lot. china is paying you a lot and your hotels and businesses all around the country, all around the world. china is building a new road to a golf course you have overseas. so what is going

on here, why not release your tax return or stop talking about corruption? i called my accountants, i will release them since i can. i want to do it. i want to show how successful and great this company is but much more important than that people were saying $750. i asked them a week ago, i said, what did i pay? they said, sir, you prepay tens of millions of dollars. i prepaid my tax. 0n fighting coronavirus, democratic nominee joe biden said people are dying from it — not learning to live with it. he says we are learning to live a debt. people are learning to die with that. you folks at home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. that man by going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch, out of habit, whether wife or husband was is

gone. learning to live with that? come on. we are dying with that because he has never said. he said it's dangerous but when's the last time? is it really dangerous still. you tell the people it is dangerous now, what should they about the danger, and you say, i take no responsibility. i take full responsibility. i take full responsibility. it is not my fault that it came here. it is china's fold. and you know what? it is notjoe's for that it came here, it is china's fault. they kept it from going into the rest of china for the most pa rt into the rest of china for the most part but they did not keep it from coming out to the world including europe and ourselves. the fact is that when we knew it was coming, when it hit, what happened? it was coming, when it hit, what happened ? what it was coming, when it hit, what happened? what did the president say? you said don't worry, it is going to go away, it will be gone by easter. don't worry, the warmer weather. don't worry, may be injected beach. he said it was kidding but a lot of people thought he was serious. a whole range of things the president has said even today, he thinks

we in control. we are about to lose 200,000 more people. look, perhaps just i was kidding lose 200,000 more people. look, perhapsjust i was kidding on that but just finish perhapsjust i was kidding on that butjust finish this, when i closed he said i should not have closed. and that went on for months. but nancy pelosi said, the same thing. she was dancing in the streets in chinatown in san francisco but when i closed he said, this is a terrible thing, you xenophobe. i think you called me racist even because i was closing it to china. now he saidi closing it to china. now he said i should have closed it earlier. and plenty more that we can pick through over the course of the next hour. there was more stability tonight so let's speak to our guest. i'm joined now by laura trevelyan who's in nashville. there are some important themes tonight. more politeness on show. and i think given the fa ct show. and i think given the fact that donald trump this time allowed joe biden to speak there will be things that

people will be picking over, won't there? from the former vice president. yes and we certainly got a lot of specifics from joe biden. he talked about a $15 an hour minimum wage for everyone and he talked about a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people who are here including the dreamers, those young people. we also talked about transitioning away from the oil industry as america needs to a different environmental policy and energy. come campaigner seized on that last part, saying it would cost millions ofjobs. the chair of the democratic committee said there is nothing new in that statement. lots of arguments going on in the trump campaign claiming that they showed thatjoe biden has a failed record of 47 years and the biden campaign are saying that the president is seizing on the back end ofjoe biden because he has nothing at all to say about coronavirus. you can see that both sides feel that something came out of it

for them but certainly for the viewer, a lot more substantive, we got to hear both people, unlike three weeks ago. the big question, did it do anything to reset this race when 47 million americans had voted? that is a third of the people who are going to vote. we must wait until november three. it is crucially important for donald trump that he shifts the momentum here. when we look at those battle ground states, voters are telling pollsters that they prefer biden to trump by 12%. on the issue of how to handle the pandemic. so when he was speaking about coronavirus tonight, did donald trump do enough, do you think, to put a dent in those numbers? well, he said what he has always said coronavirus which is that america is rounding the corner and a vaccine is on the way. it was the fault of china and he's done everything he could. he did not say anything

substantively different. joe biden said he would have masks. there will be unpopular in states where people don't want to wear masks. he said it would have testing plans and open the schools and president trump said people are learning to live with the virus and joe biden said people are learning to die with it. that did not really change anything that we particularly note on that regard there was nothing new. 0ne regard there was nothing new. one of the biggest issue is that younger voters will look at and it was jarring, the difference in the answers we got. as climate change. the final topic of the evening reserved until last. we got more of the same rhetoric from the president. you want crystal clea n water the president. you want crystal clean water and clean air. there were some bizarre things about wind power killing birds and whether or not he really embraced renewable energies. i'm not so sure. but did we get a proper policy from joe biden? particularly on the issue of

fracking? it particularly on the issue of fracking ? it is particularly on the issue of fracking? it is sensitive issue, particularly in rust belt states thatjoe biden wa nts to belt states thatjoe biden wants to win. it is particularly sensitive in pennsylvania and the champ campaign has been running a lot of ads are fracking saying that joe biden will act to ban fracking. he said very specifically tonight that he would not. the trump campaign are saying that in past he did say he would want to ban fracking and certainly his vice presidential running mate has been hostile to fracking in the past. we just got a completely different start on climate change and the president is saying no and love the environment more than him but then he is the person who has rolled back all the environmental protection is pretty much of the 0bama era because the president says that those regulations stifle business. joe biden, though, was talking about transitioning away from oil towards a cleaner economy and the trump campaign seized on that, saying this will cost millions ofjobs. for them that as a standby but of

course the democrats are saying there is nothing new in that statement. of course this was supposed to be a debate about foreign policy initially. and we touched on foreign policy for a while. they talked about north korea. what did you pick out of that? because i have been looking on social media and a lot of people pointed to the problems in the first three months of the trump presidency and donald trump said, you left mea and donald trump said, you left me a mess when it came to north korea. the democratic side are saying, well, you are the one who antagonised north korea, saying rocket man are talking about the arsenal and how you would get rid of it with fire and fury. so wonder who came out on top in that particular session. it was just a blow by blow. he said he said. the trump campaign went into this saying the president was going to talk about his substantive foreign policy achievement and he has got a number of countries to

sign, in effect, peace deals with israel. recognising israel's right to exist. but there was not talk about that. there was not talk about bringing troops home. a lot of talk about foreign entanglements byjoe biden's son. and the biden family had profited from this, supposedly. it was a little back and forth, muddying the waters of north korea. yes, they must be, when donald trump met president 0bama when he was president—elect, barack 0bama told him, look, wear the things thatis told him, look, wear the things that is most going to worry you as north korea. so that is what the whole exchange about but you needed some of the subtext to understand it. katty kay is in washington it was probably a wash and since joe biden went into it ahead in the polls, then what isa draw ahead in the polls, then what is a draw translates in debate turns into a win at this stage in the election. if those polls are right. this is what gets us

back to 2016. how confident is the biden team in those battle ground state polls and do they have enough of a lead that a draw in this debate is ok for them? donald trump behaved better though interestingly cbs news, our partner station here, just put out the kind of stats surrounding the debate. donald trump interrupted joe biden 25 times. joe biden interrupted trump 12 times. he did the lion's share of the interrupting. both men got about the same amount of speaking time. it was more substantive and the fact checkers will work over what donald trump and joe biden were saying. a lot of them are pointing out that more things that donald trump said that we re that donald trump said that were not true then joe that donald trump said that were not true thenjoe biden said. i thought that was actually particularly noticeable around the coronavirus where he started off the debate saying as vaccine is ready. clearly there are not very many scientists, in fact no scientist, who would agree the vaccine is ready.

then he had a dial that down a little bit and said he cannot guarantee it but he hoped would be there by the end of the year. continuously downplaying the coronavirus. there was an interesting exchange where perhaps it might have benefited donald trump ray talked about, we have to learn to live with this because we have got to keep our economy is open and putting the onus onjoe biden who had to defend a previous statement saying he would follow scientist unlocked and the country that was what was needed. a wash, a draw, and that probably is old biden needed at this stage if those polls are reliable. there are interesting exchanges when it came to immigration and the one thing that stood out for me is that immigration was such a big issue in the 2016 campaign. build the wall, stop the ca rava ns build the wall, stop the caravans coming across the border. it is really not featured as an issue this time because it has been overshadowed by the pandemic. they got to grips with one story we covered in our programme this week on bees for

the children separated from their parents. 500 children who we re their parents. 500 children who were taken from their parents in 2018. still not be united. what would you make of that? this is another one the fact checkers will get to work. neither the 0bama administration nor the trump administration, by the way, come out shining glory on this one because it is true that there was a period during the 0bama administration where they suddenly found that there was a surge of children coming across the borderfrom mexico by themselves. mostly teenagers. and they did build facilities to put those young teenagers into before they sent them back home again or process them. there was, on the statute, a could separate families on the basis that adults were criminals because they had crossed the border illegally. the 0bama administration did not enact that policy. they did not enact that policy. they did not put it into play and the trump administration did put that policy into place that was something that the fact checkers, i think, something that the fact checkers, ithink, will

something that the fact checkers, i think, will have a criticism of donald trump. but it was a reminder of a policy deeply unpopular even amongst republicans and particularly amongst suburban women. so the fa ct amongst suburban women. so the fact that there was that amount of time spent on that issue of the separation of children. that is something where, to the extent anyone was listening to this closely and listening to the policy issue, that won't help donald trump because that is not a policy that suburban women light. they did not like these images and we talked about how sad it is in our programme, these children being separated like that. what was probably quite effective was donald trump on an immigration was being able to say tojoe biden, you had eight years on immigration in order to get immigration in order to get immigration reform and you did not manage to do it. i think she could do it this time around? one of the important issues that will be picked over over the course of the next few hours. we will run through some of the other elements of the debate tonight. 0n the issue of race

in america, the former vice president said one of the reasons he ended up working in delaware was to learn more about institutional racism to address it. i never had to tell my daughter, if she is pulled over, make sure she puts both hands on top of the wheel and don't reach for the glovebox because someone may don't reach for the glovebox because someone may shoot you. but a black parent, no matter how wealthy or poor they are has to teach their child, when you're walking down the street, don't have a hoodie on when you go across the street. making sure that you get pulled over, yes sir, no sir, and on top of the wheel, because you are in fa ct the wheel, because you are in fact the victim whether you are a person making 300,000 a year or someone a person making 300,000 a year or someone who is on food stamps. the fact of the matter is, there is institutional racism in america and we have a lwa ys racism in america and we have always said, we have never lived up to it but we hold these truths to be self—evident, all the men and women are created equal. we have never lived up to it but

we have constantly been moving the needle further and further to inclusion, not exclusion. this is the first president to came along and said that as the end of that. president trump reiterated that he believes no other president has done more for black communities than himself. he has been in government 47 yea rs except he has been in government 47 years except in 1993, he never did anything, except when he did anything, except when he did such harm to the black community and they were called and he called them super predators. and he said that. he said super predators. and they can never live that down. 1994. the crime bill. the super predators. nobody has done more for the black community than donald trump. and if you look, with the of abraham lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of abraham lincoln, nobody has done what i've done. many people have commented that

they could not get the president to condemn the proud boys, the far—right group in america. a lot of people making that point on social media. a lot of people making that point on social media. i'm joined now by ron christie who's a republican. that particular sequence reminded me thatjoe biden is not an effective debater. he referred to president trump as abraham lincoln, sort of got his references mixed up, then he talked about the poor boys rather than the proud boys. he makes effective comments but sometimes you feel he is reaching for the point and he is not on top of that, nowhere near as on top of that as barack 0bama was. good morning to you once again. this is the paradox ofjoe biden. in so many ways he comes across as being folksy, he is the man of the people and the gentleman from scranton pennsylvania but at the same time he is so clearly rehearsing his one—liners that he often steps in this message. to candidates

prepared, you try to tell them to be as organic as possible and go with the flow but if you try to memorise every line and try to memorise every line and try to memorise every line and try to go for that one zinger, if it doesn't work it looks terrible and we saw that with the vice president and president trump this evening. trying to go for the knockout but of course they were trying to memorise the line rather than go with the flow of the conversation. i thought it was a little cringe— making conversation. i thought it was a little cringe—making whenjoe biden repeated lines one time too often. like, good lord, and rolled his eyes again. and donald trump did the same actually. do you agree with my instant analysis here that draws sort of effectively a win at this stage forjoe biden assuming the polls are right? good evening to you once again. i do. good evening to you once again. ido.i good evening to you once again. i do. i believe that the vice president needed to show that he was vigorous. that he had energy, that he has substance.

and more importantly, that he was willing to go toe to toe with the president of the united states. and that is exactly what its critics have said. joe is hiding in his bunker. joe is having a milkshake and all the media is doing is asking about whether it was chocolate or vanilla. he really did jab back at the president effectively at times and ineffectively at others but he proved at least tonight that he proved at least tonight that he had the stamina to stand there for 90 minutes and handle everything that came his way. did it all go his way? no. but he was able to stand up there and go to toe for the entire 90 minutes of the debate.|j and go to toe for the entire 90 minutes of the debate. i was reading a piece in the new york times this week about rural people in pennsylvania, farmers and landowners in fracking is hugely important to them because they have gas leases on their land that is paid for new rooves and tractors, it has put money into communities and i wonder, in texas, which is

where donald trump is ahead, but still a battle ground state now, pennsylvania, 0hio, two of them are running close, was developing in the energy discussion that you so that mightjust tip the balance in the president's favour?|j favour? the president's favour?” favour? i did. the president's favour?” favour? idid. i the president's favour?” favour? i did. ithink the president's favour?” favour? i did. i think the vice president really did himself no good favour in the way that he said he wanted to move away from oil and move away from fossil fuels. you are talking about a very vibrant part of the american economy. it is not just pennsylvania. the south da kota, just pennsylvania. the south dakota, north dakota, the upper midwest by people are making $100,000 a year plusjobs midwest by people are making $100,000 a year plus jobs where they can find enough people to come out there and actually work in this field than to actually be in a position to add to the economy and the vice president essentially said, well, not exactly against fracking but i'm not exactly for it but we need to move away from this. they can move a lot of people away from the former vice president when they look and say, is my economic

situation going to be better with a biden presidency?‘ situation going to be better with a biden presidency? a lot of these people may say it may very well be worse. what is interesting here, iwas very well be worse. what is interesting here, i was looking up interesting here, i was looking up that polo game because i wanted to check it after our conversation last time and it was from 2019, six in ten american adults say they either strongly favour of favour moving away from subsidies on fossil fuels and transitioning to greener energy. but of course those might be people who are living in non—oil or gas producing states and it just so happens that pennsylvania, which is a gas producing state, an oil producing state, an oil producing state, an oil producing state but a gas producing state but a gas producing state, also a battle ground state so those votes particularly matter. to the extent that this was not really about persuading people, ijust don't believe 12 days out there that many people sitting there saying, do i like joe biden or doi saying, do i like joe biden or do i like donald better? they've had years of these people, they know. this question of you get them to the

polls. did he feel excited enough about donald trump and joe biden to go and vote by mail or turn joe biden to go and vote by mail orturn up on joe biden to go and vote by mail or turn up on november three. was there anything in this debate that will help push people who might have been reticent or lazy to actually get out and vote? i don't think so. get out and vote? i don't think so. i think the folks who are in the president's camp are going to say, corruption is an issue and the supreme court is very important. we want to have a vibrant economy and make sure that we have civic rest in our society. they are going to go out, and if they have not voted already they're going to take their friends already they're going to take theirfriends and already they're going to take their friends and go out in d roves. if you their friends and go out in droves. if you are looking at the vice president and his camp, they are going to say, we can't take four more years of this. the country is really dealing with the pandemic and we have so much social unrest in country. let's make sure we get our folks out. both camps did what they needed to do tonight but did they really

move the needle and get a lot of people who were undecided? to be motivated to go out to vote ? to be motivated to go out to vote? i don't think so. 47 million people have already gone out and voted. surpassing the number of early ballots that were cast in 2016. there is real enthusiasm out there for the ballot. dishes which way they are voting and we won't know that for 12 or 13 more days or may be who knows? maybe it will go on for several days. maybe it will go on for several days. with me is chris morris, our reality check correspondent. it is not setting very high bar but you could actually hear what the candidates were saying and arguments being developed. from the fact checking perspective, and his very first sentence, we need cove it would bea sentence, we need cove it would be a difficult issue for the president but in this first sentence i reckon there are two or three things that we could ta ke or three things that we could take issue with. he said 2.2 million people were expected to die in the united states. now,

thatis die in the united states. now, that is misleading. it is a figure that came from that famous imperial college report here in london in march which said that if no measures were taken, if no signs change the know and change the personal behaviour in an unmitigated pandemic than up to half a million people could die in the uk and more than 2 million people in the us. but it is not a figure that anyone expected to happen. he said a vaccine should be ready within weeks. his own scientific advisers say thatis his own scientific advisers say that is very, very unlikely, probably next year. and he said that the us has a better excess mortality rate than any other country. certainly better than this country and better than some but other countries are doing much better. is that per capita. yes. the us is not the worst but it is certainly not the best. as for mr biden, he had an easier ride on covid simply because he is not in charge at the moment but he did say, you'll have noted, that the covid spikes at the moment are primarily in the red states. the republican run

states. that is pretty misleading because it is partial information. yes there has been a big surge at the moment in the midwest and many republican run states. but there have also been surges in democratic run state such as wisconsin and montana. the president said i have been congratulated by the heads of many countries for what we have been able to do. can you name some of those? i have not been privy to those particular conversations but it is not impossible. a lot of mud slinging of course. a lot of weapons to hunter biden. money russia had paid joe biden for services rendered. and coming back the other way a lot about interest in china and russia whether he was being paid. it is difficult stuff to fact check immediately because a lot of those unproven allegations. mudslinging, really come on ukraine and china. you are corrupt, no, you are corrupt. lots of the woodcut to magic ——

they would go on to other partial substantive debate in some viral affairs issues and there are some things we can pick up there. —— foreign affairs. we talked about the us trade deficit with china and thatis trade deficit with china and that is important when it comes to trade in what has happened ina big to trade in what has happened in a big relationship in the world and its effect on the american economy. he said that trump has cut the deficit with china to go up, not down. up, not down, he said. that is not right. the trade deficit with china, the gap did rise but it fell sharply once mr trump impose tariffs on chinese goods and it was slightly lower now thanit and it was slightly lower now than it is when he came into office. the counterargument is because american taxpayers are paying more for imported chinese goods. mr biden was wrong there but perhaps he could have attacked in a slightly different way. donald trump talked about nato budgets and got his numbers wrong. he

said he has protected american interest by forcing allies to pay another $130 billion in and it was in before hundred billion a year. these are not realfigures. it is billion a year. these are not real figures. it is about 130 billion in the last four years and might rise to 400 billion by 2024. this is not money he is really forced other countries to pay. they have been raising their defence budgets gradually under american pressure, yes. but his numbers were wrong in this incident. climate and environment is so important. more important than the pandemic to people given the warnings we have had. take climate, covid and club option in the long term people happy to pay attention to climate. he wa nts to to pay attention to climate. he wants to spend $100 trillion to remove windows from buildings and replacing the smaller windows. trump said that, some of the ideas are so offbeat. it is hard to know where to start. it is difficult to fact is how

someone it is difficult to fact is how someone might remove windows. windmills might kill birds. hundreds of thousands of birds kill to admit are killed by windmills but a lot less than are killed by a cat so if want to ban anything by in cats rather than wind turbines. let's end it there. thank you very much for that. both candidates launched personal attacks on their opponents character iran i ran because of you. i run because of barack 0bama because you did a poorjob. if i thought you did a good job i would not have run. i ran because of you. i'm looking at you and you are a politician. i ran because of you. i tell you what, i hope it does look at me because what is happening here is, you know who lam. you happening here is, you know who i am. you know who he is. you

know his character and you know my character. you know our for honour and telling the truth. i am anxious to have race. i am anxious to see this take place. lam not anxious to see this take place. i am not make the character of the country is on characters on the country is on characters on the ballot. look at as closely. if this stuff is about how you are an innocent baby. they are calling you a corrupt politician. i want to stay on the issue. and so it went on. how has this debate played out on social media? with me is paul hawkins. i suppose to get an idea of what people are thinking you look at what they are searching for on google, so what have you ascertained? google are clear that they have provided the information publicly and what people are searching for is no indication of voting intention but it does tell us something about the

curiosity