Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and US President Donald Trump arrive to participate in their second 2020 presidential campaign debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, US, October 22, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]
WASHINGTON — The second and final presidential debate of the 2020 election has begun.
President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, are facing off Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee, more than three weeks after their first debate.
A lot has happened since then: Trump was diagnosed with the coronavirus and spent three days in the hospital.
Organizers initially planned to separate the candidates with plexiglass barriers but removed them hours before the debate began. The candidates took coronavirus tests Thursday, and both campaigns said they came back negative.
The first debate was so raucous that changes were enacted to make the next one more orderly. There's a mute button this time that will be controlled by a representative of the Commission on Presidential Debates. It will ensure that each candidate has two full minutes uninterrupted to deliver opening answers on six major topics.
NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker was moderating. Here are some key quotes from Trump and Biden.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
US President Donald Trump answers a question as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden listens during the second and final presidential debate at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, US, Oct 22, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]
Welker asked how each candidate would lead the country out of the pandemic crisis.
Trump: "We're fighting it and we're fighting it hard… We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away."
Trump: "I caught it. I learned a lot … We have to recover. We can't close up our nation."
Biden: "If you hear nothing else I say tonight hear this ...Anyone who's responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of United States of America."
Biden: "This is the same fellow told you this is going to end by Easter last time. This is the same fellow who told you that, don't worry, we're going to end this by the summer. We're about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan."
Trump: "I don't know if we're going to have a dark winter, and at all. We're opening up our country. We've learned and studied and understand the disease."
Biden: "He says, we're, you know, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it."
HEALTHCARE
US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are joined on stage by first lady Melania Trump and by Dr. Jill Biden after their second 2020 presidential campaign debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, US, Oct 22, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]
Trump: "No matter how well you run (the Affordable Care Act), it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminate it. We have the individual mandate done. I don't know that it's going to work. If we don't win (in court) ... we'll have Obamacare but it will be better run."
Biden: "People deserve to have affordable health care, period. Period. Period. Period."
IMMIGRATION
Biden on children separated at the border: "It makes us a laughingstock and it violates every notion of who we are."
Trump: "Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels ... We let people in but they have to come in legally."
