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Trump, Biden Engage in Spirited Last Debate Before Election

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - U.S. Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic
   challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, engaged in a spirited
   debate Thursday night just ahead of the Nov. 3 national presidential
   election, presenting the nation with sharply divergent views of where
   they would take the country over the next four years.

   For 90 minutes, they traded barbs. They attacked each other's positions
   on controlling the coronavirus and curbing the continual advance of the
   country's world-leading death toll of more than 222,000. They argued
   over health care, wages for low-income workers, crime, race relations
   in the U.S., climate change and leadership in the White House.

   In the end, Trump said he deserved a second term in the White House
   because "success is going to bring us together. We had the best
   economy" before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country in early 2020
   and that he would restore the world's biggest economy.

   But he claimed that if Biden wins, "You'll have a depression like no
   one's seen."

   Biden, a fixture on the American political scene for nearly a half
   century as a senator and second in command to former President Barack
   Obama, repeatedly assailed Trump's presidency as misguided, uncaring
   and chaotic -- while vowing to reunite the country.

   "We're going to have science over fiction, and hope over fear," Biden
   said, "This election is about decency, honor, respect and treating
   people with dignity. You haven't gotten that for the last four years."

   While both candidates scored important points in their final meeting,
   neither appeared to have gotten the upper hand or delivered a telling
   blow that might immediately alter the course of the campaign.

   More civil, less rancorous

   Even with pointed attacks on each other, their second and last debate
   12 days before the election was more civil and less rancorous than the
   first time they faced each other on a debate stage in late September.
   The debate moderator, NBC News' White House correspondent Kristen
   Welker, kept the discussion under control.

   The two candidates, both in their 70s, interrupted each other Thursday
   night but not as much as three weeks ago, partly because the
   independent Commission on Presidential Debates alternately turned off
   their microphones for two minutes apiece as they began discussions of
   each of six new issues to allow each to answer without being
   interrupted by the other.

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