instead there will be a smaller audience, regulartesting and a lot more distance. one contestant, harvey, tested positive just before the show began but has recovered just in time to take part. if anyone else tests positive, they will be off the show and straight into quarantine, but, at a time when so much else has been cancelled, strictly has found a way to keep dancing. david sillito, bbc news. it does make you smile. let's catch up it does make you smile. let's catch up with the weather now. now it's time for a look at the weather. hello. a windy start to the weekend. a band of heavy rain, even some torrential bursts moving through england and wales as the day goes on. some very gusty winds, maybe in excess of 50 mph at times, too, whereas scotland and northern ireland with afternoon sunny spells. rain gradually clearing south—east

england as we go through the night. behind that still blustery, plenty of showers coming into the west, some clearer spells to the east, a few spots in north—east scotland into low single figures as we start the day tomorrow, and with low pressure close by to the north—west of the uk tomorrow it is the west that will see most of the showers, but southern england will see some too. some heavy, possibly thundery, a chance of hail as well. a few showers will trickle further east during the day but fewer showers and more in the way of sunshine for the east midlands, yorkshire, north—east england and eastern scotland. it's blustery wherever you are — these are average speeds, some gusts widely of 30 to a0 mph, maybe 50 in the western isles of scotland, and temperatures for some a notch down on today. bye— bye. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: residents of south yorkshire face tighter restrictions as the region enters tier 3 rules — more than 7 million people are now living under england's strictest covid alert level.

police in gloucestershire begin border patrols to stop non—essential travel as wales begins its first full day of a firebreak lockdown. businesses and community groups come forward to back footballer marcus rashford's campaign to feed disadvantaged children in england during the school holidays. more headlines at 3pm. now on bbc news, emily maitlis and jon sopel dissect the latest news and analysis from the campaign trail of the 2020 us presidential election race — in americast. i got an e—mail from an americaster who was listening to my report last night on the radio 4 six o'clock news. the woman is from wiltshire, and she writes, "i was in the "sitting room. "my husband was listening in the kitchen and i "heard him guffawing with laughter. "sopes just said, "the stakes

are high and the audience "is huge. "this is nashville. "surely, it should be the stakes are huge and the audience is high." we love it when you rewrite our scripts for us... brilliant. ..and there's plenty of opportunity to do that. so, viewers, listeners, thank you for your input and if you don't know, we are on a podcast as well, called americast, it's bbc sounds or wherever you get your podcasts from. you can join us all the time and you don't have to look at our faces that way. welcome to americast. announcer: americast from bbc news. it's emily in the studio in london. it'sjohn in nashville, tennessee. it'sjon in nashville, tennessee. and it's anthony in the bureau in washington dc. and we're going to start by reading a tweet we got from andy wolseley, "what this debate really needs is live americast commentary from bbc‘s jon sopel and emily maitlis, a la graham norton for eurovision."

we are not sure, andy, if we are ready to take on the graham norton mantle. not quite funny enough. i'm sort of imagining, sopes, don't know if it works for you, the swedish couple at the beginning of eurovision, you know, it's petra and lars and i say things like, "you look so handsome tonight, lars." and you have to find that reciprocal way of greeting me. does that work for you? i will find that. but i need the gold lame smoking jacket to pull it off in style. frankly, i don't think americast has the budget. yeah. hang on until next week. welcome to nashville, tennessee, where last night the stage was set and it was the last big set piece occasion before we get to the election in 11 days' time. all the united states networks were carrying it live and that meant there was a huge audience

watching and there were the same two characters on stage, but last night we were introduced to something new — donald trump 2.0. yeah. interestingly, i watched the debate and i was reminded why he won last time around. for the first time in, i think, months i was reminded what he was about again and reminded what his project had been. he was strong in areas of immigration which was what drew in the votes last time around. reminding people thatjoe biden had been vice president, he had been in the white house for eight years already. but it started on territory that was quite uncomfortable for donald trump. it was home territory forjoe biden. it was covid—i9 and how the government had handled the pandemic and this is how it kicked off. he says that we are learning to live with it. people are learning to die with it.

people have an empty table at the kitchen table this morning. that man wife gone reaching over to try to touch their other half or their wife or husband was is gone. learning to live with it? come on. we are dying with it because he has never said, he has never said it is dangerous. is it really dangerous still? are we dangerous? you tell the people with interest now if? and you said i take the responsibility. i take full responsibility. it's not my fault that he came here, it is china's fault. and it's notjoe biden fault either. it is china's fault. they kept her from going to the rest of china for the most part, but they did not keep it from coming to the world, including europe and ourselves. i take full responsibility and he said it's not my fault it came here. so, donald trump is on difficult terrain for him and there's a moment whenjoe biden

looked at the camera and said if you remember one thing, remember that more than 220,000 americans have died and the president who was overseeing this should not be in office any more. he is responsible for this. yes, donald trump to have a better debate. i think the mute button helped tone him down in addition to all the advice was given to not interrupt. the debate kicked off withjoe biden hammering on that message we look at the polls, majority of americans are mostly focused on the coronavirus when they're voting. this is the top issue and very early on, joe biden drew blood on it. the bar was set incredibly low this time because he had a terrible debate three weeks ago. he had been the predominant interrupt or right the way through more than 73 times and for that reason, he introduced the mute button this time around which meant that it wasn't the moderator, but someone

behind—the—scenes who joined the two minutes on each of them were given their opening statements for each of the six topics and they would not be spoken over. maybe it was the mute button or maybe it was a bird in his ear saying that you cannot get this wrong. you cannot be the person that just interrupts the whole time because you're not doing yourself any favours. one thing or another, it was more civilized and dare i say it was a debate that you can actually here and there was policy and there was argument and you actually got a sense of where they differed rather than who was louder or who was shouting. i thought what was very interesting that after the last debate, donald trump did what donald trump does, he claimed that it was a victory in a clearly won that debate, all pulsates so even though there were absolutely no metrics that prove that whatsoever. but those donald trump's insistence. clearly between the first debate and what unfolded last night, some advisers have managed to convince donald trump that he needed to something very differently. and so, maybe we are all shocked

because it was a normal debate and there weren't the interruptions or the shouting and i have that he didn't do that last night. some people believe that the tram campaign is on very solid ground where hunter biden‘s laptop and we give on americast something about biden‘s laptop and some of the convocations about it, but it meant donald trump could go on the attack about the joe biden‘s donald trump could go on the attack about thejoe biden‘s family, hunter biden in particular, allegations that a lot of money had been made working abroad just because hunter biden was trading on his father's name when he was the vice president. we had this whole question about whether or not because he was on the board, i later learned at burisma, the company. but somehow i had done something wrong. yet every single person when he was going through his impeachment testified under oath who worked for him said that i did my

job impeccably. i carried out us policy. not one single, solitary thing was out of line, not a single thing. number—one. numbertwo, the guy who got in trouble in ukraine was this guy trying to bribe the ukrainian government to say something negative about me, which they would not do and did not do because it never, happened. my son has not made money in terms of this thing about what you are talking about, china. the only thing i have made money from china is this guy. nobody else has made them money from china. let me ask my question to you and then we will... just one thing. his son... that was where donald trump was aiming to land the blows. this was at the heart of that whole impeachment scenario back injanuary and february. it was exactly the area thatjohn donald trump ended up getting impeached on by democrats in

the house, later overturned in the senate and i think the trouble with this story is that it is really complicated and if you are trying to tell it in a debate forum and you're trying to explain to people whyjoe biden might be corrupt or why his son might be corrupt or whether the la ptop son might be corrupt or whether the laptop came from a russian influence oi’ laptop came from a russian influence orfrom a shop, it kind of loses people naturallyjoe orfrom a shop, it kind of loses people naturally joe biden‘s response that was to knock the allegations and turn it straight back on trump, you are the guy with the chinese back down, he said, you are the guy who doesn't pay his taxes, you are the guy who doesn't —— who has been in the hands of russia. something that could have been, and i'm sure that was pretty well rehearsed, we know that biden spent virtually the whole week preparing for this kind of attack, i think that deluded it because you get to a place where unless you have really been following every twist and turn of where the money came from or whether biden‘s son had a job before he went there, you kind of thing, i don't really get it. the only other thing i would say is whilst we are talking about

professional debate performance from donald trump, don't confuse that with their veracity. there were just as many hyperbolic statements, false fa cts , as many hyperbolic statements, false facts, frankly speaking, this time around as they were before. it is just they were said in a slightly calmer tone, so i think sometimes thatis calmer tone, so i think sometimes that is quite modelling to the year of the audience. yeah, joe biden was oi'i of the audience. yeah, joe biden was on the defensive for a while on that issue and that was able to mix it up with trump and put him on the defensive. there was an area where joe biden went on the attack and that was on immigration and a question about this 2018 trump administration, no tolerance immigration policy, where they were separating children from parents who had crossed over the border and were detained outside of ports of entry. it turns out there were news reports re ce ntly it turns out there were news reports recently that more than 540 children two years later still hadn't been returned to their parents and the moderator asked a question about that and loud joe biden to be very

firm in his response. kids were ripped from their arms and separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. nowhere to go! know where to go! it is criminal! it is criminal. let me ask... ten seconds and then... they are so well taken ca re and then... they are so well taken care of. they are in facilities that we re care of. they are in facilities that were so care of. they are in facilities that were so clean but some of them haven't been reunited with their family. they are so well taken care of. it is hard to not to see what has happened is a moral outrage. leave aside whether it was right or wrong to separate babies from their mothers. people can make their own judgments on that. but to do that and not have the bureaucratic wherewithal to put in place a system whereby at a future date can be reunited, and so, in effect the

american state has created 540 orphans because they haven't taken a note of where the parents have gone andi note of where the parents have gone and i think this is a policy that does resonate, that you can argue that you need to be tough on immigration and that argument goes backwards and forwards, but notjust have the basic tools in place to make sure that at some future date mother and baby can be reunited seems to me extraordinary and i think donald trump did look vulnerable there. i thinkjoe biden‘s trump card was that he played very visceral areas that he knew would strike, as he just said. you can't hear the story about separated kids without a sort of massive long look at what is going on and you can't hear about people losing covid—i9 relatives and he played that line again speaking directly to the audience. and you can't hear him call donald trump out asa

can't hear him call donald trump out as a racist, and wannabe lines he said was, you have a dog whistle the size of a fog horn, to which the reply was... i am the least racist person, i can't even see the audience because it is so dark, but i don't care who is in the audience. lam the i don't care who is in the audience. i am the least racist person in this i’ooiti. i am the least racist person in this room. i don't know who says that, but it is probably not the racist person in the room. the presenter. and this was an area that then went into a section of the debate which became quite heated and this was the section on race, have a listen. it is all talk, no action with his politician. why west that is what i'm going to do when i become president. you were vice president along with 0bama as your president for eight years. why didn't you get it done? you had eight years to get it done? you had eight years to get it done, now you are saying you are going to get it done because you are in all talk no action. we got a lot of it done. we released 38,000

prisoners. you got nothing done. 0nce prisoners. you got nothing done. once again, donald trump is mixing it up ona once again, donald trump is mixing it up on a racial issue. he went on the attack there as opposed to the last debate, where he was definitely on the defensive and wouldn't directly condemn white supremacist, but as emily mentioned his way of responding to that was to say, i am the least racist person in the room and he did with such hyperbole, i don't know that is really going to help him at all, but here he is that. what i would say is if i was one running the trump campaign at this point he had to do one very simple thing, which was keep reminding people thatjoe biden was in the white house for eight years. eight years is a long time and really you can turn around and say to each of these problems, you know, the racial problems in america did not start four years ago. why don't you say, why didn't you get more done than? he was starting to do that towards the end, but that would have been the strongest line, which is that nothing has moved, but as soon as you're onto the grounds of, it is all about me again. it is whoa

for me, i am the least racist person in the room, then you start to make people think you are not taking any of it seriously. we are going to stay with texas because redrow is now, not by an undecided voter, but this week a decided voter. literally ryan has just voted, this week a decided voter. literally ryan hasjust voted, he is this week a decided voter. literally ryan has just voted, he is from texas. welcome, tell us what happened. yes, i actually voted yesterday or two days ago, excuse me. so yes, it was kind of a tough decision, but we got through it. go on, give us a bit more, who do go for? i actually in the presidential race i voted for trump and i was undecided probably right up until a few hours before i actually went and voted. that is extraordinary. and what was it that decided you, what

took you from may bejoe biden, maybe trump to i'm going trump is back well, there were a couple of things. the main one being i personally feel like one party or the other if they have the house of representatives, plus the senate, press the presidency, if all three are obtained by one party, i think that our country will swing too far in one direction or the other, and so in one direction or the other, and soi in one direction or the other, and so i kind of had to look at my state in particular, our congressional races and our in particular, our congressional races and our senate in particular, our congressional races and our senate races, and then i also had a look at the presidential race and i don't know if this is the right term for it, but it is kind of like hedging my bets a little bit. there were some policy issues that i really like about trump and i like the way that things have gone there. i traditionally lean republican. the issues i have with trump is i really feel like if he could have changed a

few things, may be the way he worded some things, may be the language that he used, i really feel like it could have been a landslide victory for him, but since it is not i think there is a lot of those that are going, i guess the best way to put it is they are not voting for biden, but they are voting against trump. but for me personally, i feel like we need a balance of power from the party issue on the national election, the danger of that is that sometimes we don't get much done whenever you have two parties fighting within a house or senate or a house in presidency. brian, that is such a thoughtful answer and i'm wondering whether if you haven't voted for donald trump, could you really have seen yourself going for joe biden or would it have been a no vote at all? would it have been a stay at home? yeah... i hate to stay at home because we have a lot of

local and state elections that i'm very interested in, but if i could just oscillate it to the presidency, i think it would almost be a no vote. i could possibly vote for biden, but there are too many things in the area of texas that i live in it is very agricultural —based and it is very agricultural —based and it is very energy based. we have a lot of oil and gas production, so some of the policies that a typical democrat would have and that joe biden has supported would be hard to handle from an economic standpoint in the area that i live. like transitioning from oil? ryan, let me ask you this question. who do you think is going to win? do think trump has got four more years?m texas, yes. as far as being able to win the national election, i will say i didn't think i was going to be able to watch the entire debate last

night, i thought i had a prior commitment that i wouldn't get back in time, but i was able to watch the entire debate and after last night i feel more comfortable about my vote andl feel more comfortable about my vote and i did priorto feel more comfortable about my vote and i did prior to last night. i thought the debate was very good, especially versus the first one and i thought there was a lot of good points made. i thought that biden stumbles in some places and trump stumbled in some places and biden had some good points and trump had some good points. i think one big issue that biden has is when he came out and said that he was going to work on phasing out or getting rid of the oil and gas industry, and when he said that i feel like you probably alienated himself from a lot of voters. that is fascinating. cani lot of voters. that is fascinating. can i ask you one last question? yes. if biden wins on november the 3rd, will you still feel kind of 0k about it will be devastated? because

they will be people, i imagine, who don't come from where you come from, which fairly evenhanded about things... would you accept that and move on or would you say america is going to be in a much worse place for the next four years? well... you know, i may believe that america will be in a much worse place for the next four years, but you can't... we the next four years, but you can't. .. we have the next four years, but you can't... we have such a great experiment, you know. everybody calls it an experiment whenever the declaration of independence was written and when the constitution was written, it is still an experiment. it is still a moving body, so for that to be... i am very proud to live in the united states andl proud to live in the united states and i am glad that we have this opportunity, and so whoever gets voted in, if i didn't vote i can't brag about it, but now that i voted thenl brag about it, but now that i voted then i get to say, hey, i didn't believe in that, but there are precedents, so we have to support

them, where! precedents, so we have to support them, where i think it would be a little bit different is i would probably pay a lot more attention in 2022 to my senate and congressional vote, depending on how it goes for those first two years. fascinating. ryan, you are clearly a very fine patriot, an american and ijust want to... my final bit of colour i want from you is where are you going to be watching the election? with family or friends? you are a farmer, are due? are you going to have a few beers in or are you going to be too nervous to drink? yeah, i don't know that i will be too nervous to drink, but we will probably be hanging out with family. obviously the coronavirus kind of holds back from certain big parties in those kinds of things, but we will probably be with some family at that point and watch it from there, but i don't know that it will matter. we probably won't have a decision for a few days after the election anyway. well, never too nervous to drink, that would be too long to wait. that

was just fascinating. great to have you join us on americast. thank you andi you join us on americast. thank you and i know you will be watching. we will. we are going to go to your favourite bit of the show now because we answer your questions in this part. sometimes we don't entirely. but this one this week comes from karen and this is a question... hello, americast. my question... hello, americast. my question is how do you think the biden campaign used the bombers in the run—up to the election? biden campaign used the bombers in the run-up to the election? how well the run-up to the election? how well the biden campaign used the obama family. really interesting because actually we saw something i don't think we could have imagined this timea think we could have imagined this time a week ago and that was 0bama himself becoming biden's wing man. he was the funny guy on stage, he was making the jokes, he was the funny guy on stage, he was making thejokes, cracking he was the funny guy on stage, he was making the jokes, cracking the

jibes, he really pointed the finger at trump when he spoke in pennsylvania a couple of days ago and it is kind of weird to think that the president himself, 0bama and it is kind of weird to think that the president himself, obama is president, is now the kind of playing the best man to biden. but have a listen to what we heard on wednesday night. we know that he continues to do business with china because he has got a secret chinese bank account. how is that possible? how is that possible? ! a secret chinese bank account! listen. can you imagine if i had had a secret chinese bank account? when i was running for election? you think fox news might have been a little bit concerned about that? they would have called me, beijing barry! you can almost sense a little bit of resentment in barack 0bama's response there, but that speech in

philadelphia, what he was trying to do and it what it looks like the biden campaign is trying to get him to do is reach out, particularly to young black mild voters, who didn't vote in 2016 and they need in places like pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin to turn out, those young black mild voters so i'm going to head down to florida after this and see barack 0bama in miami tomorrow and it is going to be the same thing, he is going to try to drive turnout. of course barack 0bama did the same thing in 2016, he was in philadelphia a couple of days before the election with bruce springsteen trying to drive the election turnout and we know how that turned out. that is a really important point because remember barack obama has done best at elections when his name has been on the ticket and he didn't bring that many votes to hillary clinton four years ago, and he didn't make the difference. so it will be interesting to see whether he does have an impact and does drive up the turnout. that was clearly the aim. i think the other

aim of that speech, which again is really interesting, as i think he was trying to trigger donald trump. i think he was trying to get into donald trump's head and enrage him by saying that he was... when he talked about ratings? yes, and say that he was lazy and you can'tjust point and tweet of the television say that was policy. and there are two bombers, more than two but particularly, barack and michelle and do think michelle obama will have even more effect for the side of the democrats? she has got superstar status, but somehow she manages to straddle politics and general entertainment. yes, she is a political life, but she is not a politician. i think that she has something that even more to bring to it and something that even more to bring to itandi something that even more to bring to it and i think she will also be trying to drive up turnout whether she can and there are places where they think that a low turnout, particularly among young black men might make the difference between success and failure in key states.

thank you for your questions, thank you for the e—mails. always, you can find us on this address. we have our back episodes on bbc oz app, where it is all freely available for you there. until next time and it is not long to go, see you soon. thanks for watching. goodbye! americast from bbc news. hello. a windy start to the weekend. a band of heavy rain, even some torrential bursts moving through england and wales as the day goes on. some very gusty winds, maybe in excess of 50 mph at times, too, whereas scotland and northern ireland with afternoon sunny spells.

rain gradually clearing south—east england as we go through the night. behind that still blustery, plenty of showers coming into the west, some clearer spells to the east, a few spots in north—east scotland into low single figures as we start the day tomorrow, and with low pressure close by to the north—west of the uk tomorrow it is the west that will see most of the showers, but southern england will see some too. some heavy, possibly thundery, a chance of hail as well. a few showers will trickle further east during the day but fewer showers and more in the way of sunshine for the east midlands, yorkshire, north—east england and eastern scotland. it's blustery wherever you are — these are average speeds, some gusts widely of 30 to 40 mph, maybe 50 in the western isles of scotland, and temperatures for some a notch down on today. bye— bye.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. residents of south yorkshire face tighter restrictions as the region enters tier 3 rules — more than seven million people are now living under england's strictest covid alert level. police in gloucestershire begin border patrols to stop nonessential travel as wales begins its first full day of a "firebreak" lockdown. marcus rashford says he is proud of the community response to his campaign to feed disadvantaged children in england during the school holidays. headteachers in england say they're "bitterly disappointed" that the number of laptops they're given for deprived children has been cut by 80%.

it destroyed me, it