>> you watched a different debate than i did. certainly from what i'm hearing, you watched a different debate. i think donald trump was right on his game. i think that he completely skewered joe biden. you mentioned the point where he called biden a politicians, looking into the camera. i think every time after that, everyone thought about that line. here he is looking into the camera being a typical politician. the other thing, i'll be curious to see how many people pick up on this. joe biden looking at his watch. if you recall the campaign with george h.w. bush, looked at his watch because he was sweating it out and i think that's what a lot of people are saying, that joe biden was bodily a little shaken at the end and looking at his watch to see when this thing would be over. i think that's going to be a meme out of this debate. >> van. >> look, i think donald trump did his best ever and his best was not good enough. bottom line. it was the same stuff just with a little bit less volume on it. but no plan for the future.

a big apology for a bunch of failures and smacking at joe biden all the time. but literally he did nothing he has always done. he sounded better, looked better, but there was nothing there. some of the stuff he said, i agree with gloria that the shocking lack of humidity that he demonstrated talking about those children, no apology. a human being would say i couldn't sleep at night thinking about those kids. for him to sit up there and lie and say they're being treated well was horrific. i disagree with you, senator. >> yeah? >> i just disagree with you. whenever joe biden looked in the camera and talked about real stuff, i think it did land. >> we're not keeping kids in cages anymore. and the bottom line is -- >> where are their parents? >> -- trump effectively said who built the cages. and the reality is joe biden built the cages. >> who used them in a horrific

barbaric way? >> what he was talking about -- >> if you want to talk about what's happening to those children and families, we can talk about it. but yes in fact those things were never used in the way that the trump administration has used them. and the horrific abuses -- i don't think that you guys want to have this conversation with the american people. >> what donald trump was talk about is how those children are being taken care of now, not how they were taken care of then. i think everyone agrees how they were taken care of then was reprehensible. just like the people who built the cages probably wouldn't have built them today. >> i know more about this than you do, senator. those children are still in nasty situations. the way they are deliberately dehumanizing people at the border in this country is a state pris stench in the nostrils of god. >> it's a different issue. >> it's not a different issue. there's no humanity for those children, not someone scrap of humanity. anybody would have said i can't

sleep at night. i care about these kids. are you kidding. he doesn't care. >> what he said, van, is they are taking good care of these children. >> that's not true. >> that's showing humanity that we want to take care of the children. >> where's his plan? >> rick, to gloria's point, you said he attacked him for being a politician and he was very effective there. what does it feel like to you when he stands up there and says we're going to have a big beautiful health care plan, he's been saying that for five years. it was a classic -- it was the classic politician. >> it was the worst answer of the night. >> when he tries to unload all of this giuliani stuff on biden and ends up in a long whine about his tax returns and how he's been mistreated by the irs and he can't release his tax returns. he can say you're a politician and i'm not but he behaved like a politician.

i agree he was far better than he was. if i were you, i would be giddy too because you had to defend that performance. >> he was much, much better tonight, but there were these moments that reminded people exactly what bothers them about them. and some of them were about where he talked about the biden wanting blue state bailouts and talking about how the blue states are doing badly on coronavirus, which is patently untrue. the whole country is suffering through the same thing. and every time biden got to say i am running to be an american president, not the president of my base, i think that he rang up points with those voters who might be thinking one way or the other. >> i got to get a quick break in. here's what to look for tonight as we break down the debate.

gloria, one of the things the president clearly felt he scored points on was joe biden talking about wanting to get off fossil fuels in 20 -- >> right. >> -- 30, i'm not sure the exact year in the 2030 zblz fs. >> for the man who's not a politician and an outsider, not making a play for the state of pennsylvania because fracking is a big issue there -- >> hope so. >> right, right, rick sanatorium, you know that. so the politician was making a play for the state of califor a california. joe biden has said you have to, he's for keeping fracking now,

eventually in the distant future, obviously, you have to maze it out, ma phase it out. the president made a huge point about that. but what was -- where i thought he he really lost his way because he has how answer is health care because he kept saying to joe biden, you had so many years to do x, y, and z, why didn't you do it? well, the president had so many years if he hated obamacare, and is repealing obamacare, and is in the supreme court trying to get rid of obamacare, why haven't they replaced it? with anything. >> yeah, look -- >> there is no answer for that, rick. >> well -- >> other that republicans can't agree on what they want. >> first off, i agree with you, it was a pathetic answer and, frankly, he's had a pathetic answer, i just wrote an op-ped today in "the hill" -- >> i'll read it. >> -- today with his former health care adviser that said, hey, you have an answer, mr. president, the conserve atives t forward a plan that will reduce premiums and increase the number

of insured and do all the things that you want to do. please endorse it. so, i'm as frustrated as most republicans are. >> right. >> have you heard that -- >> no, i haven't. i'm as frustrated. here's the bottom line. what the president doesn't talk about is that medicare premiums are down 30% cincinnasince the g of his term. prescription drug premiums for medicare part "d" are down 12% since the beginning of his term. why he doesn't go out and talk about the successes of lowering obamacare premium, broadening the market for people as a result of obamacare and some of the things he's done and, but you're right -- >> i tell you what -- >> as long as he doesn't have a plan, he's in trouble with answering that question. >> exactly. >> just on that -- i'm sorry, van, go ahead. >> van, go ahead. >> then he tried -- he doesn't have a plan. he has no regrets looking backwards. he's already said, i have no regrets looking -- he's standing on the graves of a quarter million americans and no plan going guaforward. he covers up the failure and

deficits by attack hunter biden, trying to dirty up a biden. no president who was proud of his past four years would ever mention hunter biden or any of that stuff. they would be doing exactly what you're saying, pounding away on successes. the reality is you have a president who knows that he has a colossal failure, has to distract americans by attacking somebody nobody believes is corrupt and a bad person. he waste add lot d a lot of tim tonight. >> on the health care issue, i think a significant thing happened that actually helps biden wihich is trump was bearig down on him about socialized medicine, people were going to have to giup their health care. biden turned to trump, said, i think he's confusing me with someone else, talking about bernie sanders and the others he ran against. he said, he's running against joe biden, i beat all these people because i disagreed with

them on this issue. he's absolutely right about that. he took a more moderate position that preserved private health care, that builds on the affordable care act. i thought that was an important piece of business for him, for any voter out there who is confused by trump's rhetoric about socialized medicine. >> right, and then -- >> hold on, if you recall, you guys discussed the whole public option thing when you guys were debating obamacare back when and you abandoned it, why? because of its impact on private insurance. there's no question you put a public option in there, you're going to destroy a lot of the private insurance markets. so, again -- >> that's not -- >> president -- president trump didn't make an effective case against it, but the reality is, biden's plan is not going to help the private market. >> that is not why -- that's not why the public option wasn't in there, rick, the public option wasn't in there because there were a few democrats with ties to the insurance industry who opposed the public option. >> because it was going to destroy private insurance. >> no, no, no, no. but, so, that wasn't why it was

in there. you know what, there's enormous public support for this, enormous. just as there's enormous public support for the affordable care act. you know, 55%, i think, in a poll today approve -- >> not in 2010, 2012, 2014. >> the president's not on the right side of this issue if you want to be on the side of the large majority of -- >> van jones. >> -- americans. >> van jones, in those states that, you know, john king right before the debate were showing in these key battleground states where polls are actually quite close. i mean, nationally, you know, national polls are one thing, but all that matters is these key states. and polls are pretty close. did this, tonight, change that dynamic in any way? did it change the dynamics of the race? >> you know, i would be surprised if it did. i do want to give biden some credit. it took courage for him to say what he said about the oil industry. for him to say, i am committed to transitioning them over time,

in a responsible way, to a better business model, frankly, these energy companies could have, you know, a much better business model, even the energy companies themselves are talking about this transition. for joe biden to not duck it, say, yeah, we're going to move responsibly to that, that takes courage in an election, he's looking at texas as the senator just said, he's looking at a pennsylvania. that's the thing about joe biden. he actually believes in some stuff. he's willing to take some stands on some stuff and, frankly, a lot more jobs putting up solar panels, on the oil rigs the next several years and willing to make that case as well. i'm very proud joe biden stood up for his beliefs and stood up for better jobs in the future than back in the line for the old jobs. >> i'll tell you another thing that came out of joe biden's mouth that was surprising to me because it was so stunning and frank. we hear all this back and forth all the time now so maybe it floats over our heads. he was trying to make a joke about donald trump and he called him abraham lincoln over here. and, of course, of course, trump didn't get the joke. and he got very angry, but he

said you're one of the most racist presidents in modern american history. period. and donald trump was talking about the '94 crime bill and all the rest of it. we know the history of that. we don't have to go through that again. but he made a statement sort of a blanket statement here, and he said, this guy's dog whistle is about as big as a fog horn, period. and we're used to that kind of language, i guess, in this campaign, but one candidate just called the other candidate a racist and, you know, it's not out of the ordinary. >> you can make the argument, gloria -- >> it's not out of the ordinary. >> -- that joe biden got in the gutter and donald trump didn't. >> well -- >> -- in this race tonight. >> i won't make that argument. >> i will, because i think he did. >> i won't make that argument because i think that -- >> you think it's true. i don't think it's true. >> i think there are reasons to believe that it is true, yes. >> nobody called donald trump a racist before he was president of the united states. no one. >> and donald trump -- >> that's not true.

wait, i'm sorry. >> central park thing, but donald trump -- >> no, no, wait a minute. wait a minute. wait a minute. other than the central -- excuse me, other than the central park thing, the central park thing -- >> i understand that case. >> -- human beings' lives who were sent to prison -- >> i get it. >> -- convicted for crimes they did not commit. >> yes. >> i understand. >> he refuses -- you know that, rick. >> also, he says, you know, justice reform, oh, i really wanted that, well, talk to van jones about how they had to talk this president into the kind of -- into that kind of reform. that he went into -- >> he did it. >> -- it kicking and screaming. kicking and screaming. van. >> rick, three weeks ago, three weeks ago we were talking about him refusing to condemn the proud boys. >> proud boys. right. >> so, i mean, it isn't as if gloria's pulling that out of the air. this has been part of the president's political project. he does -- he does dog whistle and he does stand down when he's called on to condemn -- >> biden called him out.

>> -- racist organizations and that has been a problem for him. and you know that as well. it makes you uncomfortable as well. >> van, van, go ahead. >> i -- this is a complicated thing here. first of all, the right wing always says nobody called him a racist before he was president. it's just not true. once he started on the birther think, that shocked a lot -- donald trump did have allies in the black community. donald trump had been a supporter of civil rights causes. in fact, donald trump had been a supporter of kamala harris, believe it or not, but when he went down the road of the birther thing, that changed his relationship with the black community. that, it did. and then since then, he's trying to do two things that don't go well together. he's trying to put together a peanut butter and ketchup sandwich. okay, on the one hand he has done good stuff on criminal justice, on opportunity zones and on black colleges. that's true. but he's also appealed to white supremacist organizations and other stuff and so what happened -- what continues to happen is i think that campaign wants credit for the good stuff they've done and don't take responsibility for the horrific

climate that they have embold emboldened and helped in this country. if you are a black parent or parent or color trying to raise your kids in this environment, you do not appreciate the role that donald trump has played in poisoning the atmosphere. and so two things can be true at the same time, but you're going to -- we will find out in a few days if this coalition they're trying to build on the one hand saying, doing some good things for african-americans, but then emboldening our worst enemies, is a good strategy. thi i think it's not a good strategy. >> the reality is the black community prior to covid had the lowest unemployment rate, lowest poverty rates, i mean, you just can't make up what he has done in focusing in on minority communities and trying to do things that particularly lift them up and spend time and effort, do lots of events at the white house, do lots of -- i mean, look, it's just not, you know -- >> i understand. >> -- a talking point. he's done the work and he's not getting credit for it and to do the work -- >> two things.

>> -- and at the same time be called a racist, to me, doesn't make sense. >> well, listen, there are two things that can be true at the same time. i appreciate the fact that they have done some reachout. i appreciate the fact they have been trying to grow their party out. frankly, it makes the african-american community in a much better position when both parties are taking our pain seriously. >> agree. >> i appreciate that. the problem is, what you guys don't want to take responsibility for, first of all, he lied on obama's record. obama did do stuff on criminal justice reform. the fair sentencing act, clemency, in fact, the department of justice under obama did a lot of good things on criminal justice that then jeff sessions undid. so, both of these presidents, obama and trump, obama did better administratively but didn't do as well legislatively. trump did better legislatively, did a bad job administratively. this is complicated stuff. when you want to try to politicize it, i think it's not right. i don't think most african-americans feel that we have a president that really understands the pain that we're going through and the damage that he is doing to the climate

of the country. has trump not gotten fair credit for some dustuff he's done? yeah. it's his own fault because of the stuff he does that pollutes the atmosphere. >> i want to go to daniel dale with his first fact check of the night. excuse me, let's go to wolf. >> all right, anderson, thanks very much. excellent discussion. daniel dale has his first fact check of the night here. going to do plenty of them over the next few hours of our special coverage. daniel, let's start with the big picture on how much the candidates got right or wrong tonight. >> womlf, president trump was better behaved tonight. but he lied more. this was just a bombardment of dishonesty, much of what we heard before at his campaign rallies about subjects big and small, important stuff like the coronavirus pandemic, about biden's policies, about his own record. about the -- about democrats' record. it was just on and on. biden was imperfect. there were at least a few false misleading or lacking in context claims from him, but for a fact

checker you're sitting there with biden occasionally you're like, oh, you're wrong. trump, the i love lucy episode in the chocolate factory, you don't know which one to pick up because there's so much. again, with this president, we see a constant barrage incessa t incessantly of false or misleading stuff. >> the president's handling of the pandemic certainly was a major topic certainly during the first part of this debate. the president claimed that at one point that 2.2 million americans were officially exp t expected to die from the coronavirus. listen to this. >> so, as you know, 2.2 million people modeled out were expected to die. we closed up the greatest economy in the world in order to fight this horrible disease that came from china. >> all right. daniel, so that 2.2 million figure, accurate? >> so, wolf, it's a real figure, but trump falsely describes it and he's continued to do this at his rallies. now, what this figure said, it was a report from british academics and it said that in

the u.s. if no u.s. government did anything to mitigate the virus, to fight the virus, and no citizen took social distancing action, then we could see 2 million-plus deaths but this was not an expectation. it was not a realistic estimate. this was a figure put out to say this is how bad it gets if you just let this virus run its course which, of course, the government was not about to do, wolf. >> let's listen to a claim made by the president, daniel, about the state of the coronavirus pandemic right now. listen to this. >> it will go away, and as i say, we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. it's going away. >> all right. president keeps insisting the virus is going away. it clearly is not going away. the numbers are off. >> it's -- it's not going away, wolf. i did an analysis. i found the president had said between february and october 10th, trump had said 38 times that it was going away. it was wrong eight months ago. it's wrong today. look, as you said, the numbers are terrible. we're now back above 60,000 confirmed new cases per day.

the president doesn't like to use this metric of cases. he dismisses it. well, hospitalizations are also rising. they're setting records in many states and, sadly, deaths are now rising again as they usually do with a lag after cases start rising. so, we're not rounding any turn. it's not going away. things are getting worse in the united states. >> yeah, 1,100 americans died just yesterday in 1 day. daniel, we're going to be getting back to you. i know you're doing a lot more fact checking. jake, over to you. >> thanks, wolf. i think one of the things that we need to talk about is in addition to coronavirus, the manner in which president trump talks about this because this is obviously something that is affecting all of us even if we haven't lost somebody to covid, and vice president biden tried to address people who have, specifically, lost people, and there are more than 222,000 americans who have died from this. and then it's just the concept of empathy because that is what the biden people keep hitting, what joe biden keeps hitting and it is an area that donald trump

is -- is not able to communicate effectively at all if he even possesses it, which i'm not sure. and we saw it time and time again during this debate talking about, i mean, very coldheartedly about the more than 500 kids who were separated from their parents as a policy by the trump department of justice, jeff sessions, the attorney general, enacted it, and how they haven't been able to find their parents and then you also just heard things about, like, people being deported, undocumented immigrants being deported and not coming back for their court date then president trump said, except for some with the lowest i.q.s. and just the inability to talk about what we're all going through even if it's just your kids are struggling because they're learning on their commuter computers. >> right. the key moment that really encapsulated the president not

understanding how to empathize on the coronavirus was that he repeated, as he often does, we're learning to live with it. and then joe biden came back and said, actually, we're dying with it. and i think that really was the moment on the virus that encapsulated how this president only wants to focus on re-opening, doesn't want to acknowledge the sacrifices that the american people have made, that i know many of the president's advisers and supporters would like him to do because the vice president does it. when he talks about coronavirus, he says, you know, i want to thank the american people for doing all that you've done all of these months. >> you're talking about vice president pence. >> vice president pence. >> yeah. >> president trump almost never does it. i want to add one more to your list. he was asked directly, do you understand why black families have the talk? the president literally never answered the question and never attempted to answer the question. that could have been a moment. >> yeah. >> for him. to say something. to do something. to change the perception that

some of these opportunistic talking points about the first-step act, about the opportunity zones, have more depth behind it and he refused to take that opportunity. >> instead, he talked about being the least racist person in the room, the room where there was a -- >> so he's less racist than kristen welker? >> a female moderator of color. >> i'm pretty sure kristen welker is less racist than donald trump. >> sure. right. i will bring another point which was really interesting to me, frankly, about empathy and about the coronavirus, which the president wrapped that all into one bow and when biden did his thing where he looked into the camera and said, i know there are people out there who are missing somebody at the table, somebody who doesn't have somebody at home, you know, going to sleep, the president attacked him for being a typical politician. >> it was for the -- this isn't about my family, it's not about his family, it's about your family. >> right. but he was having an empathetic moment. >> right.

>> and what the president did was try to call him out and say, that's -- to use biden's term, that's malarky, that's not real, he's just being a politician. i don't know that people are going to buy that because if u you -- even if you're not really a big fan of joe biden's policies, he is genuinely empathet empathetic. he means that. and so what trump was trying to do globally for the whole 90 minutes was to say, you know, i might be the president of the united states, i might live in the white house, but i'm still the disrupter and he's the longtime politician. and the fact that he took it that far in that moment was risky. >> that's interesting you say that, i agree, i think that does sum up the night, both biden saying that and trump's response. i think one of the reasons why, in my view, it did not work, although i'm sure it worked with the maga bubble because they think that anybody that expresses affection for their son or empathy for someone they

don't know is weak. so, but i think that's what it's indicative of. president trump lives in an atmosphere of disinformation, false information, reinforcing itself. and that's why some of the things, some of the punches he threw at joe biden i don't think landed because unless you were sean hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about. >> you need an encyclopedia to understand what is going on because it's a series of buzzwords that have meaning, perhaps, if you've been studying, you know, the daily caller, whatever it is. if you're a regular person going about your life, you're not going to understand where -- what rabbit holes the president is going down. so, you know, i noticed in this debate, you know, they were given two minutes to give their answers. the president gets a lot of words into his two minutes. when you listen to the words that are coming out, i do wonder how many people at home are really connecting the dots here

between the words that he's saying and what it means for them because sometimes it does sound like he's trying to get as many of these buzzwords in, these buzz-attack words against biden, but they don't connect with real people. and i think that's where, you know, tonight, you're really left wondering what did the president really accomplish in terms of advancing his agenda for the next -- >> and the other thing is people on his team, and you were saying this earlier, dana, people on his team wanted him to talk about the economy tonight. they wanted him to talk about how he's going to be able to bring the economy back to normal after he deals with covid. even though he's not really dealing with covid. that's a separate issue. you know, this is an area where polls indicate he's still competitive with biden if not ahead. >> it's the one area. >> the one area. >> right, it is the one area. >> but all i'm going to say is he didn't do it. >> no. >> he didn't do it. he was off in breitbart land talking about laptops. >> yeah. >> americans who are worried about food on the table or their

kids not getting a good education, or when is this virus going to be over, they didn't get an answer from him. >> right. i mean, look, let's just be clear, the bar was very low based on -- >> he didn't set himself on fire. >> right. >> correct. >> very, very -- >> yeah. >> and so he cleared that low bar. but, and he did, as i said before, listened to his advisers on some of the tactics that he should use, namely don't interrupt joe biden as much or at all. and also to try to pivot as much as he could. but one thing he didn't do that people i talked to who are in his camp on capitol hill have said over and over again is not just the economy but just broadly, what is your goal for your second term? what do you want to do? what are your agenda items? >> yeah. >> ycan you name any besides getting the economy back on track which is not a small thing. >> and learning to live with the pandemic. >> he really struggled with this question. >> there really aren't serious agenda items that we can lay out

in a very fair way which is a really important thing if you are asking the american people to get his job back. >> you get the distinct impression that the president, obviously, wishes this race were different, wishes this race were kind of taking the clock back to january of 2020 before the coronavirus. he hasn't really come to terms with the fact that this is the race that he is in right now. and he can't just say to voters, well, i just want to take the clock back. he's got to figure out how to navigate through this new reality that people are living with. one of the key things, you know, a real practical thing that i -- joe biden spent a lot of time on, actually, in one of his answers, was about schools and you mentioned it, jake, people are living with their kids at home. they want to know how their kids are going to be able to get back into schools. these are the kinds of specifics that he -- the president needs to walk people through what that looks like for them and not just say, well, the virus is coming and then we'll be fine.

>> yeah. we need to live with it. there was a much more coherent answer from biden on that. i thought he ticked three things that need to be done. even though i do think, again, that biden struggled when trump confronted him with the question of, you've been in politics for 47 years. >> yeah. >> you were vice president for eight years, why didn't you do that then? i thought that was the most effective thing that trump did this evening. i don't think it will be enough. can i just say one other thing about the gates/breitbart nonsense, trump's little code words that make hannity's pins shine at specific moments when he utters them. the president even though he leaned into it a little bit but he didn't really go fullbore. which was wise. or at least not stupid. he's is running the single most negative sleazy campaign in american history for a major party candidate. now, it used to be that people would be negative -- >> that says something.

>> it used to be people would be negative and you could always say, well, don't forget the campaign against dukakis or historians like beschloss would come on, say they had pamphlets that accused one of being -- the trump ally websites and such are leveling with charges so heinous i'm not going to say them, nonsense, crap, tied into qanon, pizzagate, tied into a person, with no evidence, just completely made up it so disgusting and so beneath what this election should be, and i just want viewers at home to be ready because all of their grandparents' facebook feeds and all of the twittersphere, it's going to be so heinous over the next 11 days.

people should be prepared for it. the president leaned into some of it, generally to some of the sleazier baseless allegations, not the worse, but it's going to get a lot worse. >> yeah, you know, i mean, it's a sign of how little in reality that they have to put up against joe biden. i mean, this is the problem for them. is that so much of this stuff is either complete fabrications of falsehoods, and just innuendo that has very little evidence behind it and they have to go there. well, to the imaginary in some ways in order to get at biden and try to drive up biden's negatives because that's been the single hardest thing for them to do up until this -- >> you guys are talking about things that are potentially out of bounds or are out of bounds, but one of the things that has really frustrated republicans is that the president has not until tonight, which i think he did much, much more of than ever before, has not defined joe biden on policy issues that a

genuinely disciplined as republicans inbound. if the president stays disciplined, i use that word very loosely, as he did tonight, things can change. it's a very big? >> it's the biggest if i ever heard. anderson? >> let's go back to our fact checker daniel dale. the president made this claim about former vice president's plan. >> one thing very important, we have 180 million people out there that have great private health care. far more than we're talking about with obamacare. joe biden is going to terminate all of those policies. >> daniel, what do you make of that? >> biden basically did this fact check for me, anderson, during the debate. it's just false. as biden said, senator bernie sanders and others on the left proposed medicare for all, single-payer government health care programs. biden is not one of those people. he's vocally rejected that approach.

what he's proposed is known as a public option, people can voluntarily enroll in a medicare-like government program if they wanted to. they would not be forced off their private plans. biden would not terminate private insurance. there are legitimate questions about how a public option if it was robust and popular would affect the availability of private insurance over time. as former senator santorum said on our air earlier. this suggestion that biden is just going to wipe away private plans, terminate them, is simply false, anderson. >> excuse me, president trump once again went after joe biden on the issue of fracking to extract oil and gas. let's listen. >> it's all a pipe dream, but you know what we'll do, we'll have the greatest economy in the world. if you want to kill the economy, get rid of your oil industry. you want -- what about fracking? >> all right. let me -- >> now we have to ask -- >> let me allow vice president biden to respond. >> i never said i oppose fracking. >> you said it on tape. >> i did -- show the tape. put it on your website. >> i'll put it on. >> put it on the website.

the fact of the matter is -- >> showed it -- >> -- he's lying. >> daniel, he then later on added that he had called for an end to fracking on federal land. >> yeah, so in this case trump is correct. biden did make anti-fracking comments during the democratic primary in 2019 and 2020. and trump was not lying. listen, for example, to something he said in 2019. >> thank you, mr. vice president. just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels including coal and fracking in a biden administration? >> no. we would -- we would work it out. we would make sure it's eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those. either -- any fossil fuel. >> so, biden did not say the words, "i oppose fracking" there, but he clearly was at least very strongly suggesting that he was an opponent. now the thing about this, the nuance here, is that was never biden's actual policy position. so we had this weird semicomical cycle during the primary where biden would make these broad

anti-fracking comments then his campaign spokespeople would have to say, no, no, that's not his actual plan, his actual plan as it is today is a ban on new leases for oil and gas on public land only. so biden is not only proposing a complete fracking ban but just false for biden to say that he never said he opposed fracking, anderson. >> daniel, overall, how did you think things compared to the last time? >> i think it was -- it was worse for trump. i mean, this was like debateification of his rally lies. biden as usual had exaggerations, some flat-false claims like the one we just fact checked. the dominant story from a fact-check perspective was this bombardment, avalanche from the president, same bombardment we've been trying to with moderate success to deal with for the last five years. >> yeah, daniel dale, we'll check back in with you again shortly. david axelrod, in terms of where things go tomorrow, the

president is going to continue with large rallies which, you know, superspreader events potentially. vice president biden is going to continue with socially distant campaigning, i suppose. how do you see this race over the next two weeks? >> yeah, well, look, i think this was the last big event that we know about. i mean, you know, as we learned throughout this campaign, there can be intervening events. no one expects. and the president is capable because he has the power of the presidency to do things but i think anything that he would do that is overtly political will be seen as such. i really think this cake is baked and whatever's going to happen on the 3rd of november when the votes are counted, there isn't a big event that's going to intervene. i don't -- i think the president needed to change the trajectory of this race tonight. you know, i was interested in this discussion earlier about the fact that he didn't really

articulate his agenda. he totally defines it. he still is running as an insurgent and defines himself totally in opposition to his opponent. but he's the president and people expect the president to have something to say about what his own vision is. and he's not comfortable with that. he had a chance to do it tonight. he really didn't do it very well. and even on substantive differences like taxes, where you think he could have bore in on biden more than he did, he really didn't come back to it. so i don't think he did anything to change the race. i think that biden is in a good position. and i think it's just a sprint to the finish line and an organizational battle now. >> you know, gloria, david raised an interesting point which when the president is asked during debates, you know, okay, for the next early on, he was asked, you know, as many as 200,000 people may die by the 1ings of februa 1st of february according to the latest projections, what are you

going to do in the next several months about this? he doesn't answer that question. >> doesn't answer. >> he pivots to other things, to attacking joe biden, or whatever it may be. to david's point, you know, joe biden says at least that he would hold up a -- he held up a mask. he said 100,000 people could be saved, more than 100,000 people could be saved if people wore these. he didn't give a lot of specifics but the president doesn't really seem to focus at all on -- >> no. >> -- actual, like, future governance. >> no, no, and biden said, i'd have a different plan for testing, i'd have a plan for opening schools, you know, he went on a bit about that. the president has his little bumper sticker then goes on to the next bumper sticker. whether it's health care, oh, well, you know, i got rid of the mandates, that's what i did, and i'm going to save pre-existing conditions somehow, although we don't know how because he doesn't delve into policy. we all know that. to me, as i'm sort of sitting

back thinking of the whole differe difference between the two men as we look at this debate, biden's strongest moments are when he reaches into his ethical, moral, self and gets outraged and talks about covid and said it's not how you have to live with it, we're dying with it. or when he talks about the ca cages, violating every notion of who we are as a country or when he talks about health care as a right, not a privilege. and that separates him from the president of the united states who doesn't, can't reach there because he doesn't have an empathetic bone in his body. to talk about these issues to the american people. instead, what we saw tonight was a focus on him -- from him trying to make joe biden somehow corrupt. he said, they're calling you a corrupt politician. and then he went into his rabbit hole as jake and dana and abby

were talking about about the hunter biden laptop and started going, you know, down that which nobody understood. trying to paint joe biden as corrupt even though joe biden, most of the american people, over 60% of the american people, believe he's honest and trustworthy and all the rest of it and they believe it is donald trump who is corrupt. so the difference tonight between these two men was so stark to me. >> i think -- i'm sorry, go ahead, senator. i'll let you. >> no, no, i didn't see the debate on coronavirus the way you folks did. look, i think trump actually gave his best defense on coronavirus that we've seen. and he contrasted it i think very clearly between joe biden who wants to continue to shut things down and -- and donald trump who wants to open things. and he did give an answer to what he would do in the future. he talked about therapeutics. he talked about vaccines. he talked about ventilators. he talked about ppe. he talked about things that are going to improve -- >> no, he said --

>> lowering the death rates. >> he said that the united states was manufacturing a lot of ventilators and sending them overseas. he said that he received therapeutics, that they call them therapeutics but actually really he thinks they're a cure which, by the way, is not something which is readily available to most people and -- >> but. >> there's no details of any kind of plan. >> but the bottom line is he talked about operation warp speed. he talked about that, you know, there that they're working on cures and therapies and -- >> that's the doctors. >> -- vaccines and would get these things out very, very quickly. now, he may be exaggerating when the vaccines came out. if you look at what joe biden is saying, he's not offering anything different. there really is only certain things you can do, how effectively and efficiently -- >> right, what he's -- what he's offering is the truth which is every expert says we are, in fact, headed into a dark winter. it is going to be a long, hard, slog, and etven if we get a vaccine, we're still going to be in a difficult position for some time to come.

the president's answer to that scientists. he's been telling us that since february. every time he tells us it's going to be gone by april, it's going to be gone by easter, it doesn't happen. he doesn't know better than the scientists. think there's an appetite for a@who actually listens to scientists. >> also, the difference in their plans is joe biden is saying, we can save 100,000 people. i think the figure is actually, like, 70,000 to 75,000 according to the latest projections. but 75,000 people could be saved if 95% of the country just wore this little piece of cloth when they went outside. >> anderson, you -- >> and the president is not talking about saving anybody. he's not talking about saving -- he can save 100,000 -- >> a couple things here -- >> -- by encouraging people to wear a mask. >> i think the senator is right on a couple things. i think you're right. i do think this is probably trump's best attempt to answer and i think you're right, he talked about the vaccine and

that kind of stuff. i think -- here's how i think it's going to actually impact the race. i think there are going to be conservatives like yourself, libertarians part of your coalition, who are relieved tonight. they feel like they can now kind of get out there, don't have to hang their heads in shame. he boxed smartly and he did well, but he needed two things to happen tonight. not just one. one, trump needed to not come across like a deranged madman who's going to run over everybody and scare people, and he needed joe biden to completely bomb. and the problem is biden did well, too. that's the problem i think -- >> see, i would -- >> you'll see it differently. >> i'll disagree where that a little bit. >> that's fine. >> go ahead, senator. >> i disagree with that. look, he made lots of -- i mean, looking at the watch. he made a lot of slurs of words. and made some -- >> inevitable. sure. nothing else -- >> nothing unforgivable. he didn't look solid. he looked a little rattled at

times. you can say, well, that's nothing, but when you're r kryptonite is just that, that's a problem for him. >> listen, for you guys -- >> a little thing can go a long way. >> listen, i understand. let me just tell you from our point of view, at least how i see it, yeah, there are times he gets wobbly but that's baked into the cake. the same way you guys have stuff baked into the cake with trump, just trumpisms, we get upset, you guys say, we're already over that. some of that stuff is baked into the cake with joe biden. >> maybe. yeah. >> joe biden is able to box -- he's up ten. joe biden was able to box smartly. he was able to deal with the situation. he got himself into some trouble, but i think the key is that if you're going to vote for joe biden, it's because you believe that he's a good man, he's a solid man, and he cares about the country. i think joe is stronger today because of his performance on that and i don't think anything that trump did outside of the fox news world hurt him there. so i think that, yes, you are

correct. i think trump helped himself tonight. i don't think he helped himself enough. i think biden comes out, i think it's a draw. i think you guys will feel better about it but we feel pretty good, too. >> hey, here's what i will say. you guys have been dancing around this fox news story, conservative world story. i understand that and i understand the, you know, mainstream media is not reporting on that, but it's not like it's not getting out there and it's not like people aren't communicating that. and the fact is, joe biden interestingly enough brought it up. i mean, that's really the interesting thing in this debate is biden actually brought it up before trump did and to talk about it, sort of go after trump a little bit. and he didn't effectively respond to it. he sort of blew it off. >> let me say something about it. >> russian disinformation. i mean, it was -- >> which is sort of hard to believe when their director of national intelligence says it wasn't. >> well, i just want to echo jake tapper. i just want to echo jake tapper on this. i think jake tapper speaks for an awful lot of americans. it is disgusting and it is despicable these online rumors and, frankly, very good people

who know better are passing around on facebook stuff that is disgusting and dishonest. frankly, if it were remotely true, joe biden would already be in prison. so let's just be honest about this stuff. one of the nastiest, ugliest smear campaigns online. >> desperation. >> in american politics. it's a desperation move. i think, listen, i don't care if you're republican, democrat, independent, whoever you are, stop promoting this -- these kind of smears. we have to be in a country where reasonable people can run for office and not be subjected to complete -- >> okay, okay. >> -- slime. >> van, i'm going to agree with you. >> i'm not talking about hunter biden. i'm talking about the other stuff. >> yeah, but remember the steele dossier, what was floated about president -- at that time candidate trump. >> i was against that, too. >> so, well, i'm just saying. it's not like both sides don't do it. and it's -- i agree, the salacious stuff, there's no -- there's no point to it. there's no -- >> is there evidence of it? >> there are some legitimate

concerns that are being raised and they're being ignored and i think they're going to come back to bite him. >> all i'm saying -- >> going to find out -- sorry, go ahead, van, then we got to go. >> look, all i'm saying is, you know, you know what i'm talking about. and for people to be promoting this sufficient on fatuff on fa. good people including good republicans, that needs to stop. let's have an actual debate. coming up, how undecided voters in north carolina responded to tonight's debate. which moments had the biggest impacts. and the instant result from poll watchers. what's their verdict? that's all ahead. >> debate night in america brought to you by -- when i started cobra kai,

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16 people died! did he catch our bad guy? we're know as the charmed ones. you got one day to show me what you got. i want to fight. you need us harry. what a goal! bockey ball, hockey ball, you name it ball. i'm gonna be ready. just say show me peacock into your xfinity voice remote or download the app today. all right. let's get back to our fact checker daniel dale. the president once again claimed he was simply joking when he talked about injecting bleach to fight covid-19. listen to this. >> fact is that when we knew it was coming, when it hit, what happened, what did the president say? he said, don't worry. it's going to go away. be gone by easter. don't worry. the warm weather. don't worry, maybe inject bleach. he said he was kidding when he said that. a lot of people thought it was serious. a whole range of things the president has said, even today,

he thinks we are in control. we're about to lose 200,000 more people. >> president trump. >> look, perhaps just to finish this, i was kidding on that. >> so, daniel, we've heard this from the president before. that he was simply kidding at one point he said, the disinfecta disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute and is there a way we can do something like that, by injection, inside or almost a cleansing, a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that, so you're going to have to use medical doctors with it, but it sounds interesting to me." it doesn't sound like he's kidding to me. >> that's dead serious. it's weird for a fact checker to fact check whether someone was joking or not. in context if you watch the video, it's entirely clear, he looked to the side of the room in the direction of his medical and scientific experts and said the quote you just said about the possibility of studying whether disinfectants, injecting

them, could treat the coronavirus. biden sometimes exaggerates on this, suggests that trump actually actively recommended that people inject bleach. he didn't. he was talking about studying it. there's no question, wolf, that he was serious and not sarcastic and kidding like he keeps claiming. >> yeah, remember, in the room at the white house briefing room, see dr. birx, she was really uncomfortable when she heard the president say that. >> yeah. >> that was a pretty awful moment. the president also talked once again about dr. anthony fauci and his early, very early ass s assessment of the coronavirus. this is what he said. >> anthony also said if you look back, exact words, here's his exact words. this is no problem. this is going to go away soon. he's allowed to make mistakes. he happens to be a good person. >> did the president quote dr. fauci accurately? >> he did not, wolf. wolf, the president has a long history. he's been doing this for months of misquoting dr. fauci, in fact, to be more precise, he keeps inventing nonexisting quotes from fauci. here's what fauci said in a

february interview that people on the right have seized on as evidence for this kind of thing. he said on the nbc "today" show at this moment there's no need to change anything that you're doing on a day-to-day basis. so people, you know, take that sentence and say, okay, he's playing it down. that's not so. listen to what fauci said next. he said, right now the risk is still low but this could change. i've said that many times even on this program. he went on to say, when you start to see community spread, this could change. and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread. he later said in that same interview this could be a major outbreak, i hope not, or it could be something that's reasonably well controlled. at the end of the day this will ultimately go down. so, yes, he did say it will ultimately go down. but he certainly, wolf, did not say soon and, again, he expressed considerable uncertainty as he continued to warn people of a looming risk. >> i don't know why the president keeps attacking dr. fauci. every time he does so the president's own political aides get very, very nervous. they don't like this.

they think it will only hurt the president in terms of public opinion. dr. fouauci one of the most respected men in america right now. daniel, i know you're working some other issues. we're going to bet back get bac soon. i want to see how the debate played with voters out. >> who still haven't made up their minds. we have a group of undecided voters in the truly critical battleground state of north carolina. they've been watching the debate together with all of us. gary tuchman is with them in davidson, north carolina, right now. so, gary, the undecide the voters, i take it, had a strong reaction to this discussion about kstz kz. coronavirus. let me throw this bite. >> reporter: that's right, wolf, we're at -- >> listen to this. >> and i don't look at this in terms of the way he does. blue states and red states. they're all the united states. and look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. they're the red states. they're the states in the midwest. the states in the upper midwest. that's where the spike is occurring significantly.

but they're all americans. they're all americans and what we have to do is say, wear these masks. number one. >> we can't keep this country closed. this is a massive country with a massive economy. people are losing their jobs. they're committing suicide. there's depression, alcohol, drugs, at a level that nobody's ever seen before. there's abuse. tremendous abuse. we have to open our country. >> so tell us, gary, why that did resonate with the undecided voters who were with you. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. those two comments from joe biden and donald trump, both regarding the coronavirus, were the highest-rated comments by each candidate according to our panel here of undecided voters. there may be a question you're asking right now, how can there possibly be at this time undecided voters? i will tell you, these people have not voted in early voting because they don't know who to vote for positively yet. i will tell you almost all of them are leaning toward one candidate or the other. a couple others have no idea whatsoever. they all say they could still be

swayed based on what they saw tonight or based on what happens over the next few days, but regarding those comments, i'll start with this gentleman right here. you go through the high points of both candidates. >> yeah. >> reporter: unity joe biden was talking about, economy donald trump was talking about. tell me why those were positive comments. >> we have to be united. we can't -- we are the united states, right. then the economy has to be open. if it's not, i mean, there's nothing for us to do. >> reporter: you give them both credit. you, sir. you thought they were both positive comments for both men, too. tell me why. >> yeah, i would say compassion doesn't care about political party lines. compassion is about all people. so i thought that was quite a convincing stand for a much-needed spirit of american unity. >> reporter: what about the economy staying open? donald trump talked about it. >> yeah. i think -- i think progress, progress through the challenges is important but not at the expense of compassion for nose w

those who are suffering. >> reporter: this young lady here. you thought that was a positive comment by joe biden and donald trump also, correct? >> i thought it was a positive comment from joe biden, yes. >> reporter: donald trump talking about the economy, though, what was your reaction to that? >> well, i feel as though that the issues, the covid needs to be addressed before we can get to that and talk about opening up the economy. >> reporter: okay. this gentleman right here, you told me that you thought it was important what joe biden said and also important what donald trump said. tell me why. >> absolutely. like we said, we're united states and donald trump uses the fact that he calls them our blue leaders don't agree with him and joe biden was having none of that. and i think the economy's important because like donald trump said, if we -- if we shut down the economy at the expense of the people, there's not going to be a country to come back to. >> reporter: one of the things we were talking about was the second biggest moment. a lot of you told us it was the last question, what would you say to voters who aren't voting for you? why did you think that was such

an important moment, the last question? >> i think that was important because i think that we need to find a commonality to come together and grow as a country. i think biden provided that type of answer. >> reporter: why did you think that was an important moment? the last question. >> well, i think that where we're at now, our country is just very divided and i think that biden basically told us that he's going to do what it takes for all americans, not just people that follow a certain political party. >> reporter: what did you think the most important moment of this debate was? >> i think the most important moment of the debate was probably the transparency discussion that was permeating throughout all the conversation. the fact that the transparency came up in tax returns, finances among overseas individuals and transparency that a covid-19 vaccine is coming out. we need to trust leaders in office and transparency i think needs to be a discussion. >> reporter: do you think this was a better debate than the first one? a lot less commotion, right? >> i do think so.

i think the moderator did a good job of handling both candidates and that they talked about the real issues and a lot of issues this time rather than just going back and forth with -- >> reporter: was it refreshing for you to see a debate where there was less interrupting, less complaining, and more substance? >> absolutely. after watching the first debate, this one was much better. i mean, it was more controlled. and also with the mute button it made a big difference. >> reporter: the mute button. everyone noticed the mute button today. >> yes. >> reporter: it did make a difference. something to keep in mind four years from now. wolf, back to you. >> i agree. i think kristen welker of nbc news did an excellent job as moderator tonight. gary, the lowest moment of the night centered on the president's remarks about racism in our country. listen to this. >> i am the least racist person, i can't even see the audience because it's so dark, but i don't care who's in the

audience, i'm the least racist person in this room. >> so tell us about the reaction to that, gary. >> reporter: yeah. it wasn't a positive reaction, wolf. as you saw. at the very least, it was a bit presumptuous to say something like that. the racist comment, let me start with you as i'm walking by you, wow did you fe how did you feel when you heard the president said that? >> i was quite shocked. i thought by this time, what we're looking for, that people would kind of teach him what to say, what not to say. but that's how he feels, so at least we actually know going into the voting where he stands. >> reporter: sir, how did you feel about that comment when we heard -- >> from donald trump comparing himself to abraham lincoln? >> reporter: yes, well, when he said -- he actually said that he's been the best president for black people since abraham lincoln. when he said he's the least racist person. how did it make you feel? >> well, it seemed like a bit of a show. i think his policy and his, like, weakness in bringing black

people and white people together says it all. >> reporter: i want to ask you now, this is what our viewers have been waiting for and that is this question about who you think won this particular debate. if you can raise your hands, this unofficial vote, the official vote will come at the ballot box for president. the unofficial vote about who won the debate. who thinks donald trump won this debate? i don't see any hands. that's a zero. how many people think joe biden won this debate? one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. how many people think it was a draw? o one, two. two people say it's a draw. zero people say donald trump. nine people, wolf, say joe biden. back to you. >> thank everyone for doing this. really interesting, gary. appreciate it very much. we're about also to get the first results from our instant poll of debate watchers. a verdict on who won tonight. we'll share that with you. lots more coming up. we'll be right back.

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i'm voting 'yes' on prop 19. nineteen limits taxes on seniors. it limits property tax on people like me. nineteen limits taxes on wildfire victims. it says so right here. if 19 passes, seniors can move closer to family or medical care. i looked at moving but i can't afford the taxes. will you help california's most vulnerable? vote 'yes' on prop 19. traffic and air pollution will be even worse after the pandemic. that's why we support measure rr to keep caltrain running. which is at risk of shutdown because of the crisis. to keep millions of cars off our roads, to reduce air pollution and fight climate change.

and measure rr helps essential workers like me get to work and keep our communities healthy. relieve traffic. reduce pollution. rescue caltrain. [all] yes on measure rr. welcome back to cnn's debate night in america. we now have the first results from the cnn instant poll of people who watched tonight's presidential debate. david chalian has the numbers. david, based on our poll, who won the debate? >> and just remember, jake, this is a poll of debate watchers. it's not representative of the country, overall. and our sample in this poll of debate watchers was about 32% democratic and 31% republican. the rest, independent. so, pretty evenly distributed. perhaps, a slight more republican sample than we see in national polling, right now.

but with that in mind, the winner of this debate was joe biden, among these debate watchers. 53% said biden. 39% said donald trump. and i, also, want to show you, though, how that compares to the first debate. joe biden didn't win this debate by as much as he won that first debate, according to debate watchers. remember, it was 60% to 28%. now, it's 53% to 39%. i also want to show how their favorable ratings changed, or didn't, before the debate and after the debate. before the debate, among this group, he had a 55% favorable rating. after the debate, 56%. basically, the same. donald trump, 42% before the debate. 41%, after the debate. so, i think that argues this debate probably did not change

much. that the trajectory did not change much, at all, in this debate. we also asked about the attacks, jake, on the candidate. were donald trump's attacks on joe biden fair? were joe biden's attacks on donald trump fair? take a look at this. biden's attacks on trump, 73% said, yes, they were fair. only 26%, a quarter of debate watchers, said, no, they weren't fair. very different results, when you ask about donald trump's attack on joe biden. look at this. it's about split in half. 50% said, yes, trump's attacks on biden were fair. but 49% of debate watchers said, no, donald trump's attacks on joe biden were not fair. so definitely, on the truth meter, the attack meter, it was a biden advantage, there. but again, those favorable ratings, not moving. to me, that suggests the race leaves this debate, as it entered it, which right now, as you know, is advantage, biden.

>> remarkably unstable race back in february, and now. thanks, david chalian. we should note, and chalian noted this to us earlier tonight, not on tv, that it was, i think ten days before the election? 11 -- 11 days before the election, four years ago, when james comey announced that he was reopening the hillary clinton investigation. and polls suggest that had a huge impact on the race, with a lot of late deciders going to biden. i'm sorry, going to trump, instead of hillary clinton. we -- tomorrow is 11 days. now, donald trump is doing everything he can to try to replicate the conditions, the atmosphere. he doesn't have james comey. he's trying to get christopher wray and attorney general barr, who, so far, have expressed reluctance. he doesn't have wikileaks. he doesn't have julian assange. >> and he is not running against hillary clinton. >> but -- but he is trying to

make joe biden into hillary clinton. saying that he's corrupt. i mean, what i was going to say is he doesn't have wikileaks. he is trying to get the director of national intelligence and rudy giuliani to come sorts with all sorts of oppo. there are 11 days to go. we will see what happens. but i'm not sure he can r replicate what happened. >> no, i don't think he can. but it is a very good reminder that it feels like the finish line is, you know, in sight right now. and that might be true. but a lot can happen, between now and then. it is a very different atmosphere. again, a very different candidate. joe biden isn't hillary clinton. there isn't the specter of a doj investigation that was already ongoing. and, you know, there are a lot of other factors that are different. but we, still, don't know. look, folks. it's 2020. so, 11 days in 2020 could be, you know, an eternity, in most other years. >> yeah. and i think all of what you're saying is exactly right. but i can't stop thinking about

that focus group that we just saw. every single person, pretty much, said the highest moment for them was joe biden talking about bringing the country together. it actually just really simplifies the dynamics in this race, in terms of where we are. the president is trying to make this race extremely negative. joe biden is trying to make this race completely the opposite of that. talking, almost entirely, about unifying the country. and based on what these undecided voters said, that resonated with them, in a real way. and i think that we have to really think about that right now. people are trying to decide who they want to lead the country for the next four years. they're not buying this idea that joe biden is a supervillain. >> well, outside of steve bannon's townhouse, who wants a more negative society, right now, out there? there's much more ahead of our debate coverage. we'll reveal another key moment that moved undecided voters. we're getting fresh results from our instant poll of debate watchers. and we're going to get the first

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welcome back to cnn's "debate night in america." it's, now, midnight here on the east coast. that means it's 11 days until election day here, in the united states. and we are breaking down the final presidential debate of 2020. a very different exchange than the first, chaotic trump-biden face off. there was far less interrupting by the president, and there was actually more debating. both candidates scoring points and taking shots. voters got a better opportunity to compare the stark divisions in their policies. let's check in with cnn's

arlette saenz. arlette, first of all, what are you hearing from the biden campaign about the vice president's performance, tonight? >> well, wolf, joe biden's advisers not surprisingly feel the former vice president won this debate, and that president trump did little to change the trajectory of the race. senior adviser, symone sanders, argued that this is a referendum on donald trump. a few of the moments they nau t thought were shiny moments for the vice president in this debate were his response to the coronavirus pandemic. and also, that message that biden would be a president for all americans. that's one of the unifying messages we've heard biden consistently deliver on the campaign trail that they thought he delivered, tonight. now, they did acknowledge the president had a bit of a calmer tone. he didn't interrupt as much but they still felt the president was on the attack, and had lies throughout the debate. now, one area that the biden campaign did have to clarify a little bit is when biden talked

about the oil industry. they said he was talking about oil subsidies. this is something we have seen the biden campaign sometimes do after these debates. explaining what the vice president meant to say when he was on that debate stage. now, as for where joe biden goes in the coming days. tomorrow, he will be in delaware giving a speech about the coronavirus pandemic and the economy. those two issues that they really believe will be the defining issues in these waning days of the election. on saturday, he heads to pennsylvania to campaign with his wife. we'll also be seeing president obama returning to the campaign trail, potentially delivering one of those forceful rebukes, again, of president trump when he campaigns down in miami on saturday. the biden campaign insists that he -- that the former vice president will aggressively campaign, in these final days, in a way that is safe to do so as the coronavirus pandemic continues to play out across the country. but biden will continue to make this case on those issues. coronavirus and the economy in these closing days of the

election. >> former vice president clearly on the offense when it came to coronavirus. the president pretty much on defense in defending his policies. arlette, we'll get back to you. jeff zeleny is watching all this very closely as well. jeff, some republicans were very anxious about how the president would do tonight, what are you hearing? >> they certainly were. across the board, they were very anxious about the president's performance at the debate tonight. and i can tell you, after contacting many republicans since the debate has ended, they are breathing a sigh of relief tonight. in the words of one senior, republican official i spoke to, they said the word, finally, at the end of this debate. so, giving a sense of approval at the president's change in demeanor. being less combative. you know, making his case in a more affirmative way. but there, also, are some questions i got from several republican officials saying why didn't he do this sooner? why did they cancel the second debate? so there is a sense of missed opportunity here as time is ticking away.

as it is now after midnight on the east coast, we are 11 days until election day. so, in the words of another senior republican adviser i spoke with, wolf, he said this. is it too late? it could be. yet, the trump campaign is planning on campaigning aggressively for the next several days. the president heading directly to florida for two rallies on friday. one, of course, going after senior voters. and in pensacola as well. these are key parts of his base. and then, over the weekend, he will be campaigning on saturday in north carolina, in ohio, and in wisconsin. again, all of these states are states that he won four years ago, is trying to hold on to, again. so, wolf, it's an unknown factor if he changed the trajectory of this race, here. republicans are certainly more optimistic than they have been in weeks. but, wolf, again, 11 days and so many people have voted. some almost 46 million americans. that, of course, those votes cannot be changed. >> yeah.

46 million americans, already, have voted. huge, huge, early-voter turnout. amazing what's going on. all right, jeff. thank you very much. we, also, are getting some more results from our instant poll of debate watchers and david ch chalian is joining us once again. >> wolf, the straight-up question to these debate watchers in our poll. who won the debate? joe biden, 53% to 39%. not as big a victory as debate number one. but still, a substantial victory in the minds of these debate watchers in our poll. what's behind that victory? take a look. who directly answered the questions more? who directly did that? 62% said joe biden directly answered the questions more than donald trump did. 31%. that's a 2-1 margin of answering the questions. 54% say joe biden had a better plan for solving the country's problems, compared to 42% who say that about donald trump. this next one. who is a strong leader?

look at this. who seemed to be the stronger leader? tied, 49% joe biden, 49% donald trump. clearly, that is a battle -- battleground, where donald trump may want to lean into that because it's where he is actually tied with joe biden. and then, finally, take a look at this. whose performance raised concerns for you about that person, about him, as president? 55% said donald trump's performance raised questions about his performing the job as president. 41% said that about joe biden, wolf. >> very interesting, indeed. david chalian with those numbers. i know you are getting more. we'll get back to you. in the meantime, let's check in with anderson. >> wolf, thanks very much. we are joined by andrew yang, kirsten powers, and scott jennings. let's get a quick take. andrew yang, what did you think? >> in the books, this cycle. yes. >> woo! >> i think it was a great night

for joe because the race is continuing in his direction. but what this debate made me think of was the first debate, 23 days ago. that had super bowl-like ratings. 100 million americans tuned in. and trump, by all accounts, gave a disastrous performance and has not really recovered. after that, he got covid. the second debate was cancelled. so this debate was better for trump, but it has not reversed the dynamics of this race. which makes it a tremendous night for joe and the democrats but i think americans are just happy this race is coming to a close. i already voted. you should vote, too. >> keirsten? you don't have to try to match andrew yang's enthusiasm, by the way. that's not expected of anybody else, other than andrew yang. >> okay. that's a relief. no, look. i think that joe biden had a very strong night, and that there is a temptation to say that trump had a strong night

because he wasn't as out of control as he was in the first debate. but i think, by any objective measure, the way that donald trump behaved is not really consistent, the way -- with the way any other president would behave in a debate, or really in any situation. i mean, if you look at how he handled the question regarding the children who, you know -- who -- who have not been reunited with their parents. there was -- there was just zero empathy and just -- just really moving into, like, attack-dog mode towards joe biden for something that he has no responsibility for. and -- and not really showing any empathy for that. and i think joe biden, on the other hand, you know. if you watch him, he seems like somebody who really cares. and that is something that really came through, tonight, i felt, on so many answers. was that he really, sincerely cares and is passionate about the people and the issues that he is talking about. whereas, donald trump just kept

trying to redirect towards things that he was claiming joe biden did, that weren't really even his responsibility. they were donald trump's responsibility. >> yeah. scott, what did you think? >> well, i can confirm what jeff zeleny said a few minutes ago, which is that republicans are very happy with what donald trump did tonight. i sort of wonder if he had turned in this performance on the first debate, would this race look different today? i mean, at this point, millions have voted. most everyone else has made up their mind. so i think people will evaluate in these insta polls, through the lens of who they decide to vote for. but this was a 180 degree flip from what we saw in the first debate. he came out tonight, he had a great stage presence. he didn't try to violate the muted mics. he let joe biden talk. he set up the policy choices. this is what trump's always needed. a race about policy choices, not a referendum on him, personally. he finally did that, tonight, and on a number of issues.

energy. taxes. you know, on and on. he actually set up debates where he could win on policy. final thing. joe biden, i think, had two interesting moments. on health care, he sort of mocked the left flank of the democratic party on their views on health care, versus his. and at the end of the debate, his comments on changing energy industry in america, getting rid of the oil industry. that will probably resonate heavily in texas, which i know democrats want to contest. but what he said about oil, i'm sure the folks in texas were listening. >> but aren't -- i mean, aren't most, you know, car companies -- i mean, wasn't biden talking about transitioning to all fossil fuels in, you know, 2030 something or whatever is in his plan? i mean -- >> i believe i heard him -- i believe i heard him say 2025, zero emissions, unless i misunderstood. which would be a pretty substantial and radical thing to do over the next, you know, essentially, one presidential

term. but here's the deal, to borrow a phrase. biden, on energy, tonight, had to talk about fracking. he had to talk habout his views on fossil fuels. trump contrasted those views. show the tape. show the tape. and immediately after the debate, the trump campaign and trump, himself, put out the video of showing different positions on fracking. so i think trump actually finally scored some points on it. >> andrew yang, did you think that was a big -- a big loss for biden on that? >> joe already released a very ambitious climate-change plan that most americans agree with. i mean, we can see the wildfires out west. that climate change is ravaging our communities here and now, not 10 or 20 years from now. but there were three times when donald trump made me laugh out loud. number one is when he compared himself to abraham lincoln in terms of his impact for black americans. the second time was when he said

that his accountant is keeping him from releasing his taxes. this is donald trump. he runs around saying i can do whatever i want. but his accountant like is keeping him, the client, from releasing his taxes? it just seems so ridiculous to any american who's ever employed an accountant. and the third is when he invoked the mythical gop health care plan that can apparently do everything under the sun. we have all heard about it but no one's actually seen it. and those three times, to me, were some of the -- the examples of trump kind of crafting his own reality. and happily, i think, many americans can see right through it, at this point. >> you know, kirsten, jake tapper was saying earlier, you know, pointing out that in 2016, a lot happened in the last 11 days of the race. comey announced the investigation into hillary clinton. clearly, president trump is trying to get his attorney general to open investigation into joe biden. using the same playbook.

i mean, again, it's 11 -- you know, 11, 12 days. a lot can still happen. >> yeah. a lot can still happen. but i think something is obviously very different between now and 2016. and that's that we're in the middle of a pandemic. and so, that is what really is hanging over the entire race. and it is something -- that is the thing that, when you look at polls where donald trump is bleating senior citizens, it's because of the pandemic. so that is go -- nothing in the next, you know, 10 or 11 days is probably going to change radically on that front. that is still going to be something that people are going to be voting on. and that people are mostly pretty unhappy with the way the president's handled it. and i don't think he did anything tonight, really, to convince anybody, you know, to feel differently about it. and i do think, on the issue of the way he was talking about the children who were separated from their parents. that is an issue, actually, that

i don't think the way he was handling it is going to go over very well with suburban women. and that's the other group of people that he needs to be concerned about. so, you know, i don't think that president trump did anything to change the trajectory for him, tonight. i -- i do agree with scott, though, about, you know, what he said about biden and his comments about the oil industry. i don't think -- you know, is that going to make or break the -- the entire election? probably not. but could it be used against him in pennsylvania? could it be used against him in texas? absolutely. >> yeah. i want to go back to jake. jake. >> well, it has been, yet another, busy night for our fact checker, daniel dale. and we're bringing him back, again. daniel, president trump talked about his push to get members of nato to pay more to support the alliance. let's listen to that. >> between the sanctions, between all of what i've done with nato. you know, i've got the nato

countries to put up an extra 130 billion, going to $420 billion a year. that's to guard against russia. i sold, while he was selling pillows and sheets, i sold tank busters to ukraine. there has been nobody tougher on russia than donald trump. >> daniel, did any of that ring true? >> there's a lot wrong there, jake. i'm going to start with the end, selling pillows and sheets. that was a vague reference to trump's usual claim that the obama administration merely sent ukraine pillows and sheets, in military aid. now, that's not true. it is true that obama declined to authorize lethal military aid, weapons to ukraine. but it sent things like drones, night-vision supplies, medical devices. so, no, it was not just pillows and sheets. now, on these figures for nato. yes, nato and its leaders do give trump credit for pressuring members into increasing spending but it is not as much as trump

claims. so, that $130 billion is not 130 billion a year. it's 130 billion, total, between 2016 and 2020. so, between 2016 and 2024, not per year. and nato told me, in an august e-mail, that estimate is now in doubt because of covid-related budget challenges. so it's, very much, uncertain, jake. >> that's an example of trump actually having good facts on his side to share. but instead, he just makes stuff up. >> yeah. it's like the truth is never -- never good enough. >> i know. just tell the truth on this one. those are actually good things to say. let's look at exchange on immigration earlier tonight. former vice president biden talking about the trump administration's border policy, detaining and separating families. >> these 500-plus kids came with parents. they separated them at the

border to make it a disincentive to come, to begin with. we're really strong. and guess what? they cannot -- it's not coyotes didn't bring them over. their parents were with them. they got separated from their parents, and it makes us a laughing stock and violates every notion of who we are, as a nation. >> let me ask a followup. >> kristen, they did it. we changed the policy. they did it. they built the cages. who built the cages, joe? >> i mean, this is a policy that the trump administration trodttd out. jeff session, attorney general at the time, introduced the family-separation policy. but there, you have president trump trying to blame the obama administration. >> yes. trump has claimed for a long time, i have been fact checking this for years, that he inherited the separation policy from obama. now, he did it tonight a bit more vaguely than in previous occasions. but he said they did it, we changed it. that's highly misleading. now, separations did occur, jake, under obama, but

occasionally. trump made them, as you say, routine, deliberately. separation occurred in exceptional cases. for example, where the parent was being criminally prosecuted for carrying drugs across the border or other serious crimes aside from illegal crossing. or cases where human trafficking was suspected. or cases where authorities do t couldn't confirm the connection between the child and adult. so separations happen but not as a result of a blanket policy. so, it was not just in cases of serious, suspected crime, suspected trafficking. just no comparison. now, i have -- i have to say, as for the cages, there is some truth to what trump said. a border processing center with chain-link fencing, you can call them cages, was set up during the obama administration in 2014, in the wake of a minor crisis. they were getting huge amounts

of children across the border, didn't feel they were equipped to handle the situation. but again, that does not mean the two administration, jake, had the same policy. >> that's right. if people are going to be outraged by kids in cages, it's fair to criticize the obama administration because there were kids in cages. but the difference is, those were kids who came across the border in these caravans, without their parents. and i'm not justifying putting them in cages. but that's definitely than having a policy, in which you are saying we're going to separa separate kids from their parents, and still not being able to find the parents of more than 500 of these kids. >> precisely. that's exactly correct. so, trump is seizing on the images of cages under obama which is, frankly, a helpful image to him and it's fair to point that out. but this is apples and oranges in terms of separation policy. >> daniel dale, thanks so much. and i have to say, abby, i mean, i think the president had an opportunity to sound more

empathetic. and, instead, what he decided to do was just chum the waters and make it like you did it, too. you did it, too. and i got texts from friends saying is that true? because they're not up on all these policy details like we are. but as daniel says, apples and oranges. >> he even suggested, at one point, that the children are being well taken care of. he repeatedly said, falsely, that they were all being brought over by coyotes. and that they were being -- being trafficked, essentially. when the reality is, based on the information that we have, the administration had a policy of separating children from their families as a deterrent. that's what happened. and now, they are trying to deal with the consequences of that. but the president doesn't want to acknowledge that. and also, doesn't want to acknowledge the humanity of people who are trying to come to the united states with their

children, to give them a better life. to give them access to the american dream. they're -- they're fleeing something. the president never talks about it in that way, and i get why he doesn't do it. it's, politically, not his cup of tea. but, in this moment, when biden is trying to -- to basically say to the american people. literally, biden said tonight and i was a little surprised to hear him say. he's repeatedly said it's criminal. it's criminal what they were doing with those children. the president had an opportunity to turn that around with a little empathy, and he didn't take it. >> there -- there was one moment that we haven't talked about but arlette brought up. and i think she brought it up because the former vice president is playing cleanup on this issue, and that is about energy. and i'm hearing from a lot of republicans and, frankly, some democrats about this. that it may be something that plays in texas which, you know, who knows if it's real, how tight it is there. but, much more importantly, where i was in the western part

of your home/commonwealth. >> pennsylvania, absolutely. >> which is -- it's very rich in -- in oil and -- and -- and fossil fuels. fracking is big there. but specifically, on the oil industry, when joe biden said i would transition from the oil industry, yeah. and then, the president jumped on it saying that's a big statement. now, tonight, the former vice president saying, well, what i meant was i would transition when it comes to federal subsidies. he's not saying that he would transition people out of their jobs which, i guarantee you, is going to be what the trump campaign and people who are, you know, on his side in these parts of pennsylvania, in particular, are going to hit on big time. and it could have an impact. and on this, just to kind of show you how concerned some of the -- some of the democrats in those areas are. some candidates for -- for the house are already on twitter separating themselves from -- >> who? >> oh, i knew you were going to ask. >> sorry. >> no, it's okay. keep talking. and i'll get it for you.

i do have. i have it here. >> this is something that joe biden repeatedly flubs. he keeps mixing up his position on fracking. and then, his campaign has to turn around and say, well, his position is that fracking is banned on federal lands. it's -- it's something that he is clearly not -- he -- he is not able to articulate, clearly, what his actual position is because it's -- it's threading a very narrow needle here. they are trying to say we want to move away from fossil fuels. but also, not wanting to ban fossil fuels. >> by the way, kendra horn, running for oklahoma 5. but you are exactly right. that -- and it's difficult. look. how many democrats have we seen covering politics fall into this -- i wouldn't even call it a trap. it's a very fine line because they do want to not make people who are very worried, understandably so, about losing their jobs, even more worried.

and say forget it i'm going to vote for the other guy. >> and this underlines something that -- that is interesting in this race which is joe biden's not a great candidate. i mean, like in terms of his speaking style. he flubs a lot of stuff. there are a lot of gaffes. we haven't really seen it because of the coronavirus pandemic. he hasn't been out there on the stump. he hasn't been pressing the flesh. haven't been as many voters challenging him. i mean, this happens. i covered -- this is his second presidential race i've covered and there was one when i was a freshman in college. he's not necessarily the strongest candidate but this is a race against donald trump. and as joe biden always says, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. and the alternative is donald trump and as the incumbent, it's really, largely, a referendum on him, this race. >> and donald trump is, also, guilty of not being articulate

about, a, the truth and, b, his own policies. often, inflates or misstates them for political purposes. so joe biden, if he were running against -- even if he were running against -- >> mitt romney. >> -- mitt romney or a lot of other people, this would be a much bigger problem. >> yeah but it is a referendum on donald trump. and david chalian -- oh, i'm throwing to anderson. on. anderson, back to you. >> jake, thanks very much. you could have done it. i'll introduce david chalian. >> they put you up. sorry. >> got to make the doughnuts. david chalian has more on our instant poll of debate watchers. david, what else did you see? >> i just had anderson cooper and jake tapper fighting over me. it was kind of amazing. anderson, remember, our big poll finding of debate watchers. joe biden won this debate. he won it, 53% to 39%. that's the basic question. who won the debate? but now, i want to show you the gender gap.

because this is what we see in this race, everywhere. how women are powering joe biden's position in this race. look among the female debate watchers. 60% say that biden won. only 35% say trump won. when you look at the male, debate watch frs, debate watchers, it splits almost evenly. 47% said biden won. 44% said trump won. look at the issue set that got discussed tonight. biden wins on climate change, 67-29. race and equality, 62% to 35%, biden. coronavirus, a biden strength, 57% to 41%. foreign policy, nearly even. 50% biden, 48% trump. and look at the economy. donald trump has a huge lead among these debate watchers about who would better handle the economy. 56% say trump. 44% say biden.

i imagine that's tied to some of the conversation you just heard dana and abby and jake having about that oil answer that the biden campaign is trying to clean up. but that is a trump strength, in this race. and even more so, in this debate, tonight. and then, finally, just the bread-and-butter question. did this debate make you more likely to vote for biden or trump? 21% of debate watchers said, yes, more likely to vote for biden. 14% said more likely to vote for trump. but nearly two-thirds of the debate watchers say neither. it didn't really alter their feeling about where they were in this race, prior to the debate. again, i think getting at there, probably, is not a huge change to the fundamental dynamics in this race from this debate. but because donald trump was able to do some work, some positive work here, we could see a little bit of impact. but i don't think we're seeing an upending of the dynamics as

they exist. >> it's the thing we have heard from supporters of the president, working with the president on the campaign. wishing he would focus, you know, on the issues that he does well on with voters, as opposed to going down these rabbit holes and these conspiracy theory kind of swamps. >> it's politics 101, anderson. when you see numbers like that, any politician, normally, they would look at that and say lean into that. that's a strength. let's play that up. you could bring people along. you can actually add to your coalition from this. you are you're doing better in this area than you're doing, overall. so, lean into it. but you're right. he chooses grievance politics and rabbit holes, time and again. no matter how many times people around him say, please, get out there every day and just talk about the economy. he has not proven disciplined enough to do that, yet. >> yeah. let's go to our team. check in. scott jennings. i'm sure, as a republican, you

wish the president would focus on the economy. >> yeah. it's his best issue and people think that, before covid, we had a good economy. and i think they believe trump is better geared towards getting the policies that would get it back. the race hasn't exactly been about the economy. so, obviously, that's hurt trump. i do think one thing about what david chalian just said that -- that dawns on me is that if trump did enough tonight to, say, shore up some wobbly republicans who care about the economy. maybe, some senior citizens thought, hey, that's the kind of republican that i recognize. you wonder if this debate, even if not a ton of minds were changed, it might have staved off the possibility that the bottom could fall off in the center-right suburbs. perhaps, thinking i don't want to do this again. so i think that is -- that is something that could have happened. i think, for biden, the one thing you brought up in the earlier panel, anderson, about the last 11 days. could something happen? the one thing he's got going for

him that hillary clinton never had is that people don't hate him. look at his image. his favorable/unfavorable rating is over water. in 2016, hillary clinton was so far underwater, nobody ever gave her the benefit of the doubt about anything. you have a reservoir of good will that is sort of like a cocoon. you know, it's like a bit of a shield against bad things that could happen to you. people will give you the benefit of the doubt. so that's why i think a debate or some other last-minute issue won't be as impactful on biden the way the comey letter was impactful on hillary clinton. >> that's interesting. kirsten, do you agree with that? john king was showing us earlier tonight. biden's not all that ahead of where hillary clinton was and, in fact, in some states, is actually behind where hillary clinton was, at this stage in the race. >> yeah. right. so, i think it is unlikely -- look. we're probably not going to have

another -- god willing -- situation like, you know, comey coming out right before the election and changing the dynamic in -- in that serious kind of way. so, you know, what -- what i think is -- is fascinating is that, you know, donald trump, based on what we just heard, you know, more people trust him in terms of how to handle the economy. and yet, under any normal circumstances, a president who is trusted on the economy would be running away with the race. you know, that is -- that is, typically, the thing that people vote on. if you were to say give me one number and it's how the president's doing on the economy. that would all but guarantee that -- that they're going to be re-elected. and yet, he's not even remotely running away with the race, if we believe the polls. he is quite far behind, at least nationally and some very key states. and with people who had supported him. again, so what does -- what does that say about donald trump?

>> well, the problem for trump is that the economy and covid are the same thing, right now. where you have disney world reopened its doors, and then no one showed up. and then, disney just announced that they are laying off thousands of workers. so you can't be strong on the economy, and be completely mistrusted on covid because, one, unfortunately, for all of us, leads into the other. this is why trump can benefit from a republican and inaccurate association of him as the businessman and it's not affecting his overall numbers. sometimes, the numbers tell the truth. and we're all somewhat traumatized by 2016. but if you look at the numbers around the country, joe is ahead in many of the swing states that he needs to win. and he is competitive in places like georgia, north carolina, texas, arizona. trump had a rally in georgia a number of days ago, which is the last place he wants to be, at this stage in the race. so, i think, at some point, we have to start listening to the numbers because they're telling

a very consistent and clear story. >> all right. coming up. we're going to find if any of the undecided voters we're talking with in north carolina are decided now. who they'll vote for after watching tonight's debate. that, and another debate fact check ahead. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (clapping)

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all right. we are getting more reaction coming in from the undecided voters who watched tonight's final presidential debate. gary tuchman is with undecided voters in the key battleground state of north carolina. gary, those voters gave the highest mark of the night to joe biden when he talked about election security. watch this. >> any country, no matter who it is, that interferes in american elections will pay a price. they will pay a price. and it's been overwhelmingly clear, this election -- i won't even get into the last one -- this election, that russia has been involved. china's been involved, to some degree. and now, we learn that -- that iran is involved. they will pay a price, if i am elected.

>> so, gary, what are the voters telling you about why that answer resonated with them? >> wolf, first, let me just tell you this. that the exhales you hear are the sighs of relief here at davidson college, north of charlotte. this was a far more substantive debate. they were very alarmed three weeks ago so people are happy they heard more. that's an important thing i want to bring up right away. regarding this issue we talked about. election security. that was such an important issue for you. tell me why it's so important to you when you heard joe biden talk about how election interference from foreign countries is a problem. >> i think, unless there's a strong disincentive, it's going to continue and get worse and it threatens free elections, which is important to this country. >> same question to you. were you concern -- are you concerned that mr. trump isn't talking about that, so much? >> yeah. i feel that, if a country gets involved in the election, then they have leverage over that particular leader when they

bring to light that, hey, i got you this election. now, you owe me. >> how concerned are you about other countries interfering in our presidential election? >> very concerned. and also, concerned about the role that our leader takes in -- in working with these countries. either, in the past or moving forward. >> nathan, same question to you. you did tell me, earlier, that you were leaning towards president trump. all of you -- almost all of you are leaning toward somebody. a couple of you were not sure, at all. but you're all willing to be swayed, based on what you saw during this debate. that's an important point to bring out. you were leaning towards trump. were you troubled by the fact president trump hasn't talked much about foreign interference? >> you know, i guess not. i think he's got -- he's got a team that does that for him. and i know that the question was posed and he went off on some tangent. just like he does a lot of other things. >> did you like the fact that joe biden made a point of it?

>> i did. i did. i mean, i'm glad he came out and said it. it's an important issue. >> another important issue that you talked about with me was the discussion about pre-existing condition coverage. joe biden's talked about that with obamacare. are you confident that joe biden will keep coverage, pre-existing conditions? anyone worried about that? no. is anyone worried donald trump keeps that promise that he's not going to keep that promise? let me ask you that question. th does that concern you? that he's not going to be able to keep that promise because he's not given any substance about it? >> yeah, i think he really hasn't shown that's really any of his priorities. and i think that he's basically focused on getting rid of anything that obama and biden did. >> but he does say he will keep pre-existing condition coverage. do you believe that? >> if you can take him at face value, then yes. >> well, do you? that's the question. doesn't matter what i think. it matters what you think.

as an undecided voter. >> i -- no, i don't think i can trust that. >> how do you feel about that, linda? >> i don't think i can trust him about that. and it does matter to me. i have health issues. so, i really want the pre-existing conditions not to be, you know? >> thank you for your response. one thing i want to point out, everyone here absolutely loved the idea of the mute button. and they're laughing about it but they liked it. and i suspect that, if we hear a lot of arguing in future years, that mute button will be back. wolf. >> a much more civil debate thanks to that mute button. now, gary, the big question. did tonight's debate help any of them decide who they would vote for? >> okay. and that is the big question. you all came here undecideds. you said you were willing to be swayed. i have been saying all night. how could anyone be undecided? these 11 people were undecided when they walked in today. my question is, of the 11 of

you, after watching this debate, how many of you are ready to cast a vote for president of the united states? raise your hands, please. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. most of you are ready to vote. of the seven of you, how many of you are ready to vote for president trump? zero. how many of you are ready to vote for president -- for vice president biden for president? one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. okay. so, that's a good day for joe biden, according to this group. what i am very interested, though, is those who aren't ready. very quickly, why aren't you ready to vote for president? >> probably, for fear of missing out. so, you could find that one piece of information that, if i were to vote tomorrow and donald trump does or joe biden does something on friday or saturday. i'd be like, well, i shouldn't have voted. >> all right. so, you're still waiting for more. okay. as i mentioned, you are leaning towards donald trump. you're not ready, yet. >> i still want to wait and see what happens over the next week and a half. >> what could happen? >> who knows? >> okay. who is the third person who said

they weren't ready to vote? you. okay. let me ask you the question, too. >> i want to see some evidence that the democrats won't tank the economy. >> you think you'll get that evidence in the next 12 days? >> i think i can do some research and see what i think about it. i mean, is there assurance? never. >> okay. final person, right over here. tell me why you are not ready to cast your vote, yet. what are you waiting for? >> well, i'm pro-life. so i'd like to see, you know, whether judge barrett gets on the court. >> if she gets on the court, what does that mean? >> i'll probably vote for biden. >> you'll vote for biden if she gets on the court. and why is that? >> well, i think that he is a stronger leader who is more willing to support fair elections, and lead both matters more back toward the center and away from extremism. >> so you are saying if the justice you want gets on the court, you no longer have to worry about her getting on the court and you can select biden.

that sounds confusing but that's interesting. >> yeah. it's hard. >> all right. we try to make television interesting when we do stories like this. and you are a bunch of very interesting people. thanks for watching the debate with us. great americans. great north carolinians. >> thank all of them for spending so much time with us. gary, thank you very, very much. jake, over to you. >> all right, wolf. thanks so much. >> that was interesting. >> the young man who is very concerned about -- he's very anti-abortion. it's very important to him. and yet, at the same time, clearly, with the exception of that issue, far prefers joe biden. judge barrett becomes justice barrett, he's like i don't have to worry about that, anymore. i'm going with joe biden. i mean, fascinating. >> it is fascinating. really, it makes me wonder how many other people might be thinking similar things. i mean -- >> it never even occurred to me anyone would think that. >> it didn't even occur to me and it's probably a nonzero number of other people. but it's an interesting dynamic

and i also think it's interesting that so many of the people who seemed to be maybe inclined to want to vote for trump. or skeptical of biden. were the ones who came out of this debate still feeling like they hadn't made a decision. and i think that's pretty telling. it means that the president did not close the sale for those people who are already inclined to be interested in voting for him. >> he didn't but joe biden did. >> yeah. >> with -- with the majority of the people who said that they have made up their mind. they were, you know, i think all of them were -- were -- were for joe biden. obviously, this is a focus group. this is not, necessarily, representative of what we're going to see, even more broadly, in north carolina. but it is very, very telling. and to hear these voters talk about why they didn't or didn't change their mind. the other dynamic that you are reminded of is that people have voted and are voting. like, they will wake up, tomorrow morning, and go vote. they don't have to wait. >> 47 million have already

voted? >> right. and in north carolina, in pennsylvania, in wisconsin, in so many of these really important states, florida, they could just take what they saw tonight. digest it. and go do it. as opposed to waiting the 11 days that we were talking about, going back four day -- four years with the comey decision. >> and just to note. we've surpassed the entire 2016 early vote, already, at this point. >> incredible. >> 11 days left. i mean, it's an extraordinary amount of time we have left. and millions, millions, millions, more people are going to vote. >> yep. >> two parts of the debate that i think we will definitely see in targeted advertising. one, joe biden and his flub, gaffe, whatever you want to call it, about fossil fuel energy. we already have, you noted the congresswoman from oklahoma distancing. we already see a congresswoman from new mexico, democratic congresswoman, from new mexico, distancing.

so that's going to be, i think, carried forward by the trump campaign, at least in terms of what joe biden actually said. and then, joe biden is not doing as well, according to polls, with latino voters as hillary clinton was, at this point. he's doing better with other groups but not with latinos. donald trump has made inroads. i would be surprised if the biden campaign didn't take two comments that trump made. one, just the lack of humanity when talking about the child-spraegchild child-separation policy. and, two, again, i am still stunned at his comment about the latinos that come into the country after being deported are at low iq. i mean, it's just a stunningly racist remark. not out of character. we've seen it, before. but shocking to hear it on a debate stage. >> yeah. i mean, i think those two comments for president trump. he didn't do himself any favors. but one thing we should keep in mind is that joe biden is struggling, particularly with latino men. and he is really struggling with latino -- people of cuban descent in florida, in particular.

and they might be less swayed on some of these immigration-related issues, and more swayed on economy-related issues. so, it's a little bit of a tricky situation with joe biden with latino voters because, in some ways, it's actually completely -- it might be completely divorced from his policies on immigration, versus trump's policies on immigration. >> all right. we're going to take another, quick break. on the other side, the bottom line on tonight's debate. [ thunder rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ]

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. 11 days to go. let's look where the race stands in the electoral college map. where joe biden is leading and will it change. that's the map for 270. let's go to the panel. andrew, when you look at the map, do you think the race changes tomorrow based on what we saw tonight? does anybody have more momentum that they may not have, or they didn't have yesterday? >> the fact is, one side needed a game changer tonight and that's donald trump. and they did not get it. this map looks very much the same tomorrow as it does right now. and one thing we have not talked about, anderson, is that joe biden's campaign has built a fundraising juggernaut. they have a nine figure cash advantage they are deploying in the form of advertising nationally and in the swing stets. democr democrats are in a great

position, it's going to be establishing a margin of victory in states like pennsylvania and around the country, but joe has to be thrilled about tonight. >> kirstin. >> yeah, i do think that donald trump needed to do something different. if he, if he made a few people feel better about vote forgive him, i think scott was sort of making had that case earlier. i think there are people who were already voting for him, i don't think that he did anything to help himself with people who have voted for him before, and were thinking of voting for joe biden. and i think joe biden just has to continue with the same argument that he has been making that he is, you know, going to be the president for all people, i think there's a real fatigue around the division and the polarization that even tonight, you didn't see the president trying to tamp down. >> yes, scott, do you think the president won over anybody who was on the fence or, you know, reached out to any new voters

tonight? >> i do, i mean, i will take that one. i think there were republicans, anderson, who you know, probably approve of a lot of what the president has done from a policy perspecti perspective. they have fatigue, they have anxiety over what he is going to do, they are worn out from the guy. but tonight they saw a president trump they can live with for the next four years. i got a text from a republican, and he said in the first debate, basically everyone was fretting, they knew the poll numbers would tank and they did. this time around, nobody has that fear. to look at the next few days. if i was donald trump, i would be doing a couple of things. number one, florida, he has to hold on to florida. number two, that florida, south carolina, georgia, north carolina and ohio. if he can hold north carolina, georgia, and florida, and figure

out a way to hold on to a state in the upper midwest, he is had in the ball game on election night. if florida falls on election night, that's a huge problem. how do you win the states? you find voters who fit your demos who lean your way on issues and didn't vote in 2016, and maybe they were not even registered and you use your massive field program, which the trump has invested in, and you have to turn them out. so, there's not a ton of persuasion going on. there's turn out going on out there. to alter the electorate, that is is had task over the next two weeks. >> an true, does scott's math worry you? >> you would much rather be joe according to the map. the great thing about joe's position, he has multiple paths to 270 and trump has to pull an inside straight. which, would be a very, very difficult task because it's not like the dems cannot see it coming. you know, like, we can invest in

a lot of the same battlegrounds and at this point, the biden campaign has meaningful resources to invest, scott is not wrong, that is trump's path to victory, but you would rather be the other side on that one. >> we will continue with chris cuomo and don lemon after a break. be right back. ♪ i had this hundred thousand dollar student debt. two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in debt.

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hello, everybody. i'm chr cuomo, along with my man d-lemon. don lemon. our final post debate extravaganza of 2020. >> final, tifinal. >> i will say this, it was the last debate. and you saw both men for who they are. and don and i both believe the teams have pretty much been decided. >> yep. >> and it's time to play the game. >> yep. but you did get to see the best version of donald trump that you have seen in a debate. low bar. >> good morning to you. good morning honest abe. >> who you calling abe lincoln? i never said i'm abraham lincoln. i didn't say that. of all the things that was too much. >> i was like, he is offended by that, by honest a