Donald J. Trump vs. Joe R. Biden: Final Debate - US Election 2020

Kristen Welker [20:04:18]Vice President Joe Biden, tonight's debate is sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. It is conducted under health and safety protocols designed by the commission's health security adviser. The audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent. No cheers, boos or other interruptions, except right now, as we welcome to the stage, former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald J. Trump. [24.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:05:03]Again. And I do want to say a very good evening to both of you. This debate will cover six major topics at the beginning of each section. Each candidate will have two minutes uninterrupted to answer my first question, the debate commission will then turn on their microphone only when it is their turn to answer and the commission will turn it off exactly when the two minutes have expired. After that, both microphones will remain on, but on behalf of the voters, I'm going to ask you to please speak one at a time. The goal is for you to hear each other and for the American people to hear every word of what you both have to say. And so with that, if you're ready, let's start. And we will begin with the fight against the coronavirus. President Trump, the first question is for you. The country is heading into a dangerous new phase. More than 40 thousand Americans are in the hospital tonight with covid, including record numbers here in Tennessee. And since the two of you last shared a stage, sixteen thousand Americans have died from covid. So please be specific. How would you lead the country during this next stage of the coronavirus crisis? Two minutes uninterrupted. [67.5s]

President Trump [20:06:12]So, as you know, two point two 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. It's a worldwide pandemic. It's all over the world. You see the spikes in Europe and many other places right now. If you notice, the mortality rate is down 85 percent. The excess mortality rate is way down and much lower than almost any other country. And we're fighting it and we're fighting it hard. There is a spike. There was a spike in Florida and it's now gone. There was a very big spike in Texas. It's now gone. There was a very big spike in Arizona. It's now gone. And there are some spikes and surges and other places they will soon be gone. We have a vaccine that's coming. It's ready. It's going to be announced within weeks and it's going to be delivered. We have Operation Warp Speed, which is the military is going to distribute the vaccine. I can tell you from personal experience that I was in the hospital, I had it and I got better. And I will tell you that had something that they gave me a therapeutic I guess they would call it. Some people could say it was a cure, but I was in for a short period of time and I got better very fast or I wouldn't be here tonight. And now they say I'm immune, whether it's four months or a lifetime. Nobody's been able to say that, but I'm immune. More and more people are getting better. We have a problem. That's a worldwide problem. This is a worldwide problem. But I've been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we've been able to do with the if you take a look at what we've done in terms of goggles and masks and gowns and everything else and in particular ventilators, we're now making ventilators all over the world, thousands and thousands a month, distributing them all over the world. It will go away. And as I say, we're rounding the turn were rounded the corner. It's going away. [120.6s]

Kristen Welker [20:08:13]OK, former Vice President Biden, to you. How would you lead the country out of this crisis? You have two minutes uninterrupted. [6.2s]

Vice President Biden [20:08:20]Two hundred twenty thousand Americans dead. You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who is responsible for not taking control, in fact, not saying I'm I take no responsibility initially. Anyone who's responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America. We're in a situation where there are a thousand deaths a day now, a thousand deaths today, and there are over 70000 new cases per day. Compared to what's going on in Europe, as the New England Medical Journal said, they're starting from a very low rate, we're starting from a very high rate. The expectation is we'll have another two hundred thousand Americans dead in time between now and the end of the year. If we just wore these masks, president's own advisers have told him, we could save one hundred thousand lives. And we're in a circumstance where the president thus far and still has no plan, no comprehensive plan. What I would do is make sure we have everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time. I would make sure we move in the direction of rapid testing, investing in rapid testing. I would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the wherewithal, the financial resources, to be able to do that. We're in a situation now where the New England Medical Journal, one of the serious, most serious journals, in the whole world, said for the first time ever that this the way this president has responded to this crisis has been absolutely tragic. And so, folks, I will take care of this. I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan. [107.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:10:08]President Trump, I'd like to follow up with you and your comments. You talked about taking a therapeutic I assume you're referencing Regeneron. You also said a vaccine will be coming within weeks. [10.0s]

President Trump [20:10:18]Yes. [0.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:10:18]Is that a guarantee? [1.5s]

President Trump [20:10:20]No, it's not a guarantee, but it will be by the end of the year. But I think it has a good chance. There are two companies, I think, within a matter of weeks, and it will be distributed very quickly. [8.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:10:29]Can you tell us which companies? [0.6s]

President Trump [20:10:30]Johnson and Johnson is doing very well. Moderna is doing very well. Pfizer is doing very well, and we have numerous others. And then we also have others that we're working on very closely with other countries, in particular Europe. [11.5s]

Kristen Welker [20:10:42]Let me follow up with you, because this is new information. You have said a vaccine is coming soon, within weeks. Now, your own officials say it could take well into 2021 at the earliest for enough Americans to get vaccinated. And even then, they say the country will be wearing masks and distancing into 2022. Is your timeline realistic? [17.4s]

President Trump [20:11:00]No, I think my timeline is going to be more accurate. I don't know that they're counting on the military the way I do, but we have our generals lined up, one in particular, that's the head of logistics. And this is a very easy distribution for him. He's ready to go as soon as we have the vaccine and we expect to have 100 million vials as soon as we have the vaccine, he's ready to go. [20.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:11:20]Vice President Biden, your reaction. And just 40 percent of Americans say they would definitely agree to take a coronavirus vaccine if it was approved by the government. What steps would you take to give Americans confidence in a vaccine if it were approved? [12.5s]

Vice President Biden [20:11:33]Make sure it's totally transparent. Have the scientists of the world see it, know it, look at it, go through all the processes. And by the way, this is the same fellow who told you this is going to end by Easter last time. It's 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. And there's no prospect that there's going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American people before the middle of next year. [28.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:12:01]President Trump, your reaction? He says you have no plan. [2.2s]

President Trump [20:12:04]I don't agree a dark winter at all. We're opening up our country. We've learned and studied and understand the disease, which we didn't at the beginning when I closed and banned China from coming in, heavily infected, and then ultimately Europe. But China was in January. Months later, he was saying I was xenophobic. I did it too soon. Now he's saying, oh, I should have I should have, you know, moved quicker. But he didn't move quicker. He was months behind me, many months behind me. And frankly, he ran the H1N1 swine flu. And it was a total disaster, far less lethal. But it was a total disaster. Had that had this kind of numbers seven hundred thousand people would be dead right now. But it is a far less lethal disease. Look, his own person who ran that for him, who, as you know, was his chief of staff, said it was catastrophic. It was horrible. We didn't know what we were doing. Now he comes up and he tells us how to do this. Also, everything that he said about the way every single move that he said we should make, that's what we've done. We've done all of it. But he was way behind us. [73.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:13:17]Vice President Biden, your response. [1.4s]

Vice President Biden [20:13:19]My response is he is xenophobic, but not because he shut down access from China and he did it late after 40 countries had already done that. In addition to that, what he did, he made sure that we had forty four people that were in there in China trying to get the Wuhan to determine what exactly the source was. What did the president say in January? He said no. He said this is he's being transparent. The president of China is being transparent. We owe a debt of gratitude. We ought to we have to thank him. And then what happened was we started talking about using the defense act to make sure we go out and get whatever is needed out there to protect people. And again, I go back to this. He had nothing. He did virtually nothing. And then he gets out of the hospital and he talks about where this is, oh, don't worry. It's all going to be over soon. Come on. There's not another serious scientist in the world who thinks he's going to be over soon. [51.5s]

Kristen Welker [20:14:10]President Trump, your reaction. [0.9s]

President Trump [20:14:12]You say over soon? I say we're learning to live with it. We have no choice. We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does. He has the he has the ability to lock himself up. I don't know. He's obviously made a lot of money someplace, but he has this thing about living in a basement. People can't do that. By the way, I as the president couldn't do that. I'd love to put myself in the basement or in a beautiful room in the White House and go away for a year and a half until it disappears. I can't do that. And Kirsten, every meeting I had, every meeting I had and I'd meet a lot of families, including Gold Star families and military families, every meeting I had and I had to meet them, I had to, it would be horrible to have canceled everything I said, you know, this is dangerous and you catch it. And, you know, I caught it. I learned a lot. I learned a lot. Great doctors, great hospitals. And now I recovered. 99.9 of young people recover. 99 percent of people recover. We have to recover. We can't close up our nation. We have to open our school and we can't close up our nation or you're not going to have a nation. [65.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:15:18]And of course, the CDC has said young people can get sick with COVID-19 and can pass it. Vice President Biden, I want to talk broadly about strategy though. [8.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:15:27]Can I respond to that? [0.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:15:28]30 seconds, please, then I have a question. [1.3s]

Vice President Biden [20:15:30]Number one, he says we're you know, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife gone to bed tonight or reaching over to try to touch their out of habit where their wife or husband was is gone learning to live with it. Come on. We're dying with it because he's never said it. He said it's dangerous. When's the last time? Is it really dangerous still? We dangerous. You tell the people it's dangerous. Now, what should they do about the danger? And you say, I take no responsibility. [32.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:16:03]Let me talk about your[0.6s]

President Trump [20:16:05]Excuse me, I take full responsibility. It's not my fault that it came here. It's China's fault. And you know what? It's not your fault that it came here either. It's China's fault. They kept it from going into the rest of China for the most part, but they didn't keep it from coming out to the world, including Europe and ourselves. [17.6s]

Kristen Welker [20:16:23]Vice President Biden. [0.8s]

Vice President Biden [20:16:24]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 two hundred thousand more people. [24.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:16:50]President Trump. [0.7s]

President Trump [20:16:51]Look, perhaps just to finish this, I was kidding on that. But just to finish this, when I closed he said I shouldn't have closed. And that went on for months. What? Nancy Pelosi said the same thing. She was dancing on the streets in Chinatown in San Francisco. But when I closed, he said, this is a terrible thing, you xenophobic. I think he called me racist even. And because I was closing it to China. Now, he says I should have closed it earlier. It just, Joe, it doesn't work. [29.4s]

Vice President Biden [20:17:20]I didn't say either of those things. [1.5s]

President Trump [20:17:22]You certainly did. You certainly did.[1.4s]

Vice President Biden [20:17:24]I talked about a xenophobia in a different context. It wasn't about closing the border to Chinese, coming to the United States. [6.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:17:31]All right. I want to talk about both of your different strategies to handling this. [2.9s]

President Trump [20:17:34]He thought I shouldn't have closed the border. Well, that's obvious. [3.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:17:38]Is that, do you want to respond to that quickly, Vice President Biden? [2.0s]

Vice President Biden [20:17:41]No. [0.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:17:41]OK, let's talk about your different strategies toward dealing with this. Mr. Vice President, you suggested you would support new shutdowns if scientists recommended it. What do you say to Americans who are fearful that the cost of shutdown, the impact on the economy, the higher rates of hunger, depression, domestic and substance abuse outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus?[18.0s]

Vice President Biden [20:18:00]What I would say is I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country. It's his ineptitude that caused the virus caused the country to have to shut down in large part, why businesses have gone under, why schools are closed, why so many people have lost their living, and why they're concerned. Those other concerns are real. That's why he should have instead of in a sandtrap in his golf course, he should've been negotiating with Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats and Republicans about what to do about the acts they were passing for billions of dollars to make sure people had the capacity. [14.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:18:30]You haven't ruled out more shutdowns?[1.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:18:33]No, I'm not shutting down today. But there are look, they need standard. The standard is if you have a reproduction rate in a community that's above a certain level, everybody says slow up more social distancing. Do not open bars and do not open gymnasiums. Do not open until you get this under control, under more control. But when you do open, give the people the capacity to be able to open and have the capacity to do it safely. For example, schools, schools, they need a lot of money to grow. They need to deal with ventilation systems. They need to deal with smaller classes, more teachers, more pods. And he's refused to support that money or at least up to now. [38.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:19:11]Let's talk about schools. President Trump. [1.5s]

President Trump [20:19:13]I have to respond, if I might. [0.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:19:14]Please. And then I have a follow-up. [1.0s]

President Trump [20:19:16]Thank you. I appreciate that. Look, all he does is talk about shutdowns, but forget about him. His Democrat Governors Cuomo in New York. You look at what's going on in California, you look at Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Democrats, Democrats, all there shut down so tight and they're dying. They're dying. And he supports all these people. All he talks about is shutdowns. No, we're not going to shutdown and we have to open our schools. And it's like as an example, I have a young son. He also tested positive. By the time I spoke to the doctor the second time, he was fine. It just went away. Young people, I guess it's their immune system. [38.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:19:54]Let me follow up with you, President Trump. You've demanded schools open in person and insist they can do it safely. But just yesterday, Boston became the latest city to move its public school system entirely online after a coronavirus spike what is your message to parents who worry that sending their children to school will endanger not only their kids, but also their teachers and families? [18.4s]

President Trump [20:20:13]I want to open the schools, the transmittal rate to the teachers is very small, but I want to open the schools. We have to open our country. We're not going to have a country. You can't do this. We can't keep this country closed. There's 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. This abuse, tremendous abuse. We have to open our country. You know, I've said it often. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. And that's what's happening. And he wants to close down. He'll close down the country if one person in our in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down. [44.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:20:57]Vice President Biden your response. [0.9s]

Vice President Biden [20:20:58]Simply not true. We to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We ought to be able to safely open but when they need resources to open, you need to be able to for example, if you can open a business, have social distancing within the business, you need to have if you have a restaurant, you need to have plexiglass dividers so people cannot infect one another. You need to be in a position where you can take testing rapidly and know whether a person is in fact infected. You need to be able to trace you need to be able to provide all the resources needed to do this. And that is not inconsistent with saying that. What we're going to make sure that we open safely. And by the way, all you teachers out there, not that many of you are going to die. So don't worry about it. So don't worry about it. Come on,. [46.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:21:45]President Trump, let me follow up with you quickly. [1.8s]

President Trump [20:21:47]Although I will say this. If you go and look at what's happened to New York, it's a ghost town. It's a ghost town. And when you talk about plexiglas, these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting a plexiglas is unbelievably expensive. And it's not the answer. I mean, you're going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic? It's these are businesses that are dying, Joe. You can't do that to people. You just can't take a look at New York and what's happened to my wonderful city for for so many years. I loved it. It was vibrant. It's dying. Everyone's leaving New York. [35.3s]

Vice President Biden [20:22:22]Take a look at New York has done in terms of turning the curve down in terms of the number of people dying. 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, 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, make sure we get the help that the businesses need that has money already been passed to do that? It's been out there since the beginning this summer. And nothing's happened. [38.8s]

President Trump [20:23:02]Kristen, New York has lost more than 40,000 people, 11,000 people in nursing homes. [6.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:23:08]President Trump... [0.3s]

President Trump [20:23:10]You say, spike, take a look at what's happening in Pennsylvania where they've had it closed. Take a look at what's happening with your friend in Michigan, where her husband is the only one allowed to do anything. It's been like a prison. Now it was just ruled unconstitutional. Take a look at North Carolina. They're having spikes and they've been closed and they're getting killed financially. We can't let that happen, Joe. You can't let that happen. We have to open up. And we understand the disease. We have to protect our seniors. We have to protect our elderly. We have to protect especially our seniors with heart problems and diabetes problems. And we will protect. We have the best testing in the world by far. That's why we have so many cases. [41.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:23:51]Let me follow up with you before we move on to our next section. President Trump, this week you called Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's best known infectious disease expert, quote, A disaster. You described him and other medical experts as, quote, idiots. If you're not listening to them, who are you listening to, to fight this? [15.3s]

President Trump [20:24:06]I'm listening to all of them, including Anthony. I get along very well with Anthony, but he did say don't wear masks. He did say, as you know, this is not going to be a problem. I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK. He said this is not going to be a problem. We are not going to have a problem at all. When Joe says that I said Anthony Fauci said and others and many others and I'm not knocking him. Nobody knew, look, nobody knew what this thing was. Nobody knew where it was coming from, what it was. We've learned a lot. But Anthony said don't wear masks.  Now he wants to wear masks. Anthony also said if you look back, exact words use his exact words. This is no problem. This is going to go away soon. So he's allowed to make mistakes. He happens to be a good person. [44.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:24:51]Vice President Biden, your response quickly. And then we're going to move on to the next section. [2.9s]

Vice President Biden [20:24:55]My respons is that think about what the president knew in January. He didn't tell the American people. He was told this was a serious virus to spread in the air and it was much worse than, much worse than the flu. He went on record and said to, one of your colleagues recorded that, in fact, he knew how dangerous it was, but he didn't want to tell us. He didn't want to tell us because he didn't want us to panic. He didn't want us, Americans don't panic. He panicked. But I guess what in the meantime, we find out in The New York Times the other day that, in fact, his folks went to Wall Street and said, this is a really dangerous thing. And a memo out of that meeting, not from his administration, but from some of the brokers, said sell short because we've got to get moving. It's a dangerous problem. [43.2s]

President Trump [20:25:38]Well, this. [0.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:25:38]I'm going to give you 30 seconds to respond and then we'll move on. [2.5s]

President Trump [20:25:42]I don't know, somebody went to Wall Street, you're the one that takes all the money from Wall Street. I don't take it. You have raised a lot of money, tremendous amounts of money. And every time you raise money, deals are made Joe. I could raise so much more money as president and as somebody that knows most of those people. I could call the heads of Wall Street the heads of every company in America. I would blow away every record. But I don't want to do that because it puts me in a bad position. And then you bring up Wall Street. You shouldn't be bringing up Wall Street because you're the one that takes the money from Wall Street, not me. My I could blow away your records that like you wouldn't believe. We don't need money. We have plenty of money. In fact, we beat Hillary Clinton with a tiny fraction of the money that she was able to raise. [40.6s]

Kristen Welker [20:26:22]Gentleman we're going to move on. [0.5s]

Vice President Biden [20:26:24]Average contribution forty three dollars. [2.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:26:26]All right. We're going to move on to our next section, which is National security. And I do want to start with the security of our elections and some breaking news from overnight. Just last night, top intelligence officials confirmed again that both Russia and Iran are working to influence this election. Both countries have obtained U.S. voter registration information, these officials say, and Iran sent intimidating messages to Florida voters. This question goes to you, Mr. Vice President. What would you do to put an end to this threat? You have two minutes uninterrupted. [30.2s]

Vice President Biden [20:26:57]I made it clear and I ask everyone to take the pledge. I made it clear that any country, no matter who it is, it 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 has been involved to some degree. And now we learn that that that Iran is involved. They will pay a price if I'm elected. They're interfering with American sovereignty. That's what's going on right now. They're interfering with American sovereignty. And to the best of my knowledge, I don't think the president said anything to Putin about it. I don't think he's talking a lot. I don't think he said a word. I don't know why he hasn't said a word to Putin about it. And I don't know what he has recently said, if anything, to the Iranians. My guess is he'd probably be more outspoken with regard to the Iranians. But the point is this, folks, we are in a situation where we have foreign company, countries trying to interfere in the outcome of our election. His own own national security adviser told him that what is happening with his buddy? Well, gosh. Well, I will. His buddy, Rudy Giuliani, he's being used as a Russian pawn. He's being fed information that is Russian, that is not true. And then what happens? Nothing happens. And then you find out that everything is going on here about Russia is wanting to make sure that I do not get elected the next president of the United States, because they know I know them and they know me. I don't understand why this president is unwilling to take on Putin when he's actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, when he's engaged in activities that are trying to destabilize all of NATO. I don't know why he doesn't do it, but it's worth asking the question, why isn't that being done? Any country interferes with us will, in fact, pay a price because they're affecting our sovereignty. [115.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:28:52]President Trump, same question to you. Let me let me ask the question. Are going to have two minutes to respond for two elections in a row. Now, there has been substantial interference from foreign adversaries. What would you do in your next term to put an end to this two minutes uninterrupted? [12.6s]

President Trump [20:29:05]Let me respond to the first part as Joe answered. Joe got three and a half million dollars from Russia and it came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow and it was the mayor of Moscow's wife. And you got three and a half million dollars. Your family got three and a half million dollars. And, you know, someday you're going to have to explain why did you get three and a half? I never got any money from Russia. I don't get money from Russia. Now, about your thing last night, I knew all about that and threw at John, who is John Radcliffe, who is fantastic DNI. He said the one thing that's common to both of them, they both want you to lose because there has been nobody tougher to Russia with between the sanctions, nobody tougher than me on Russia, 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 dollars 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. And I'll tell you, they were so bad they took over the, the submarine port. You remember that very well during your term, during you and Barack Obama, they took over a big part of what should have been Ukraine. You handed it to them, but you were getting a lot of money from Russia. They were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are. But now, with what came out today, it's even worse. All of the emails, the emails, the horrible emails of the kind of money that you were raking in you and your family, and Joe, you were vice president when some of this was happening. And it should have never happened. And I think you owe an explanation to the American people. Why is it somebody just had a news conference a little while ago who was essentially supposed to work with you and your family, but what he said was damning, and regardless of me, I think you have to clean it up and talk to the American people, maybe you can do it right now. [113.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:31:14]Vice President Biden, you may respond. I do want to follow up on the election security. [0.9s]

Vice President Biden [20:31:15]I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. We learned that this president paid fifty times the tax in China, has a secret bank account with China. Does business in China and in fact is talking about me taking money. I have not taken a single penny from any country what so ever, ever, number one. Number two, this is a president. I have released all of my tax returns. Twenty two years. Go look at them. Twenty two years of my tax returns. You have not released a single solitary year of your tax return. What are you hiding? Why are you unwilling? The foreign countries are paying you a lot. Russia is paying you a lot. China is paying a lot. And your hotels and all your businesses, all around the country, all around the world. And China is building a new road to a new a golf course you have overseas. So what's going on here? Why don't release your tax return or stop talking about corruption? [58.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:32:13]President Trump, your response, please. [1.3s]

President Trump [20:32:14]First of all, I called my accountants, under audit it. I'm going to release them as soon as we can. I want to do it. And it'll show how successful, how great this company is. But much more importantly than that, people were saying seven hundred and fifty dollars. I asked them a week ago, I said, what did I pay? They said, sir, you prepaid tens of millions of dollars. I prepaid my tax returns over the last number of years, tens of millions of dollars I prepaid because at some point they think it's an estimate. They think I may have to pay tax. So I already prepaid it. Nobody told me that. Nobody told you that at least exuse me. And it wasn't written. Whenever they write this, if they keep talking about seven hundred and fifty dollars, which I think is a filing fee, but let me just tell you, I prepaid millions and millions of dollars in taxes, number one. And number two, I don't make money from China. You do. I don't make money from Ukraine. You do. I don't make money from Russia. You made three and a half million dollars Joe, and your son gave you. They even have a statement that we have to give ten percent to the big man. You're the big man, I think. I don't know. Maybe you're not, but you're the big man. I think you sense that we have to give 10 percent to the big man. Joe, what's that all about? It's terrible. [76.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:33:30]All right, gentlemen, I want to ask you both some questions about all of this. I'm going to let you both respond very quickly. You just said you spoke to your accountant about potentially releasing your taxes. Did he tell you when you can release them? Do you have a deadline for when you're going to release them to the American people? [12.3s]

President Trump [20:33:43]I get treated worse than the Tea Party got treated because you have a lot of people in there deep down in the IRS, they treat me horribly. We made a deal. It was all settled until I decide to run for president. I get treated very badly by the IRS, very unfairly. But we had a deal all done. As soon as we're completed with the deal, I want to release it. But I have paid millions and millions of dollars and it's worse than paying. I paid in advance. It's called prepaying your taxes. I paid on it. [29.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:34:13]I want to ask you both about questions regarding your potential foreign entanglements and questions that have been raised to give you both a chance to talk about this more broadly. Respond very quickly and then I'll get to my question. [10.6s]

Vice President Biden [20:34:24]Why didn't he? He's been saying this for four years. Show us. Just show us. Stop playing around. You've been saying for four years you're going to release your taxes. Nobody knows, Mr. President. What they do know is you're not paying your taxes or you're paying taxes that are so low. When last time he said what he paid, he said, "I only pay that little because I'm smart. I know how to game the system." Come on. Come on, folks. [26.5s]

President Trump [20:34:51]So. [0.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:34:51]President Trump, and then I want to get to two questions to both of you on this. [2.9s]

President Trump [20:34:55]I was put through a phony witch hunt for three years. It started before I even got elected. They spied on my campaign. No president should ever have to go through what I went through. Let me just say this. Mueller and eighteen angry Democrat and FBI agents all over the place, spent forty eight million dollars. They went through everything I had, including my tax returns, and they found absolutely no collusion and nothing wrong. Forty eight million. I guarantee you, if I spent one million on you, Joe, I could find plenty wrong. Because the kind of things that you've done and the kind of money that your family has taken, I mean, your brother made money in Iraq, millions of dollars. Your other brother made a fortune. And it's all through you, Joe. And they say you get some of it and you do live very well. You have houses all over the place. You live very well. [54.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:35:49]All right, gentlemen, let me just ask some questions about all of this broadly. Vice President Biden, there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president. In retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical? [14.8s]

Vice President Biden [20:36:05]Nothing was unethical. Here's the deal. With regard to Ukraine, we had this whole question about whether or not because he was on the board, I later learned of a Burisma, a company that somehow I had done something wrong. Yet every single solitary person when he was going through his impeachment, testifying under oath, who worked for him, said, "I did my job impeccably. I carried out US policy. Not one single solitary thing was out of line, not a single thing." Number one. Number two, the guy who got in trouble in Ukraine was this guy trying to bribe the Ukrainian government to say something negative about me, which they would not do and did not do because it never, ever, ever happened. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China? I have not had, the only guy who's made money off China is this guy. He's the only one. Nobody else has made money from China.[48.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:37:08]President Trump, let me ask my question to you. [0.7s]

President Trump [20:37:09]Could I just, one thing. His son didn't have a job for a long time, was sadly no longer in the military service. I won't get into that. And he didn't have a job. As soon as he became vice president, Burisma, not the best, not the best reputation in the world. I hear they paid him a hundred and eighty three thousand a month. Listen to this. One hundred and eighty three. And they gave him a three million dollar upfront payment. [25.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:37:34]All right. I'm going to let the vice president respond to that quickly.[0.0s]

President Trump [20:37:35]And he had no energy experience. [0.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:37:37]And then I need to get to a question to you. Very quickly, Mr. Vice President.[1.6s]

Vice President Biden [20:37:40]No basis for that. Everybody investigated that. No one said anything he did was wrong in Ukraine. [3.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:37:44]OK, President Trump, this is for you. Since you took office, you've never divested from your business. You've personally promoted your properties abroad. A report this week which was referenced does indicate that your company has a bank account in China. So how can voters know that you don't have any foreign conflicts of interest? [16.5s]

President Trump [20:38:00]I have many bank accounts and they're all listed and they're all over the place. I mean, I was a businessman doing business. The bank account you're referring to, which is everybody knows about it, it's listed, the bank account was in 2013. That's what it was. It was open to do, i.t was closed in 2015, I believe. And then I decided. Because I was going to do, I was thinking about doing a deal on China like millions of other people. I was thinking about it. And I decided, I'm not going to do it. Didn't like it. I decided not to do it. Had an account open and I closed it. Excuse me. And then unlike him, where he's vice president and he does business, I then decided to run for president after that. That was before. So I closed it before I even ran for president, let alone became president. Big difference. He is the vice president of the United States and his son, his brother and his other brother are getting rich. They're like a vacuum cleaner. They're sucking up money every place he goes. [58.8s]

Kristen Welker [20:39:03]Okay, President Trump, thank you. We do need to move on. [0.0s]

Vice President Biden [20:39:03]Not true. [0.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:39:03]I do want to ask you, Vice President Biden, about China. Let's talk about China more broadly. There have of course President Trump has said they should pay for not being fully transparent in regards to the Coronavirus. If you were president, would you make China pay and, please be specific, what would that look like?[4.9s]

Vice President Biden [20:39:23]What I'd make China do is play by the international rules, not like he has done. He has caused the deficit to China to go up, not down with China up, not down. We are making sure that in order to do business in China, you have to give all your intellectual properety you have to have a partner in China, that's 51 percent. We would not do that at all number one. Number two we're in a situation where China would have to play by the rules internationally as well. When I met with Xi and when I was still vice president, he said, "We're setting up air identification zones in the in the South China Sea. You can't fly through them." I said, "We're going to fly through them. We just flew B-52 B1 bombers through it. We're not going to pay attention." They have to play by the rules. And what's he do? He embraces guys like the thugs like in North Korea and and and the Chinese president and Putin and others. And he pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies. We make up only, we're twenty five percent, twenty five percent of the world's economy. We need to be having the rest of our friends with us saying to China, "These are the rules. You play by them or you're going to pay the price for not paying by them economically." That's the way I will run it. And that's what we did in upholding steel tariffs on a range of other things when we were president and vice president. [78.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:40:42]All right. Let's talk about North Korea. [1.7s]

President Trump [20:40:44]Excuse me. I have to respond to that. [1.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:40:46]OK, very quickly and then we're going to move on to North Korea. [1.7s]

President Trump [20:40:48]His son walked out with a billion and a half dollars from China. [2.0s]

Vice President Biden [20:40:50]Not true. [0.2s]

President Trump [20:40:51]After spending ten minutes in office and being in Air Force Two, number one. Number two, there's a very strong email talking about your family wanting to make ten million dollars a year for introductions. [11.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:41:03]President Trump, on China policy, though, what specifically are you going to do? What specifically are you going to do to make China pay? You've said you're going to make them pay. [7.3s]

President Trump [20:41:11]First of all, China is paying. They're paying billions and billions of dollars. I just gave twenty eight billion dollars, Kristen. [5.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:41:17]New sanctions? New sanctions? [0.1s]

President Trump [20:41:17]I just gave twenty eight billion dollars to our farmers. It was China.[3.3s]

Vice President Biden [20:41:20]Taxpayers' money. [1.1s]

President Trump [20:41:22]It's what? [0.2s]

Vice President Biden [20:41:23]Taxpayers' money. Didn't come from China.[1.5s]

President Trump [20:41:25]You know, the taxpayers. It's called China. [2.0s]

Vice President Biden [20:41:28]Not true. [0.3s]

President Trump [20:41:28]China paid twenty eight billion. And you know what they did to pay it, Joe? They devalued their currency and they also paid up. And you know who got the money? Our farmers, our great farmers, because they were targeted. You never charged them anything. Also I charged them twenty five percent on dumped steel because they were killing our steel industry. We were not going to have a steel industry. And now we have a steel industry. [19.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:41:48]Vice President Biden, your response, please. [1.4s]

Vice President Biden [20:41:50]My response is, look, this isn't about, there's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the the substantive issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family. And your family's hurting badly. If you're making less than, if you're a middle class family, you're getting hurt badly right now. You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning deciding, "Well, we can't get new tires because we have to wait another month or so. Or, "Are we going to be able to pay the mortgage." Or, "Who's going to tell her she can't go back to community college?" They're the decisions you're making in the middle class families like I grew up in, in Scranton and Claymont. They're in trouble. We should be talking about your families. But that's the last thing he wants to talk about. [44.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:42:35]I want to talk about North Korea. [0.7s]

President Trump [20:42:35]That is a typical statement. Excuse me, just for one second, please.[0.0s]

Kristen Welker [20:42:35]I want to talk about North Korea. I do want to turn to, ten seconds, Mr. President. Ten seconds. [4.4s]

President Trump [20:42:40]That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing and then he looks to family around the table. Just a typical politician when I see that. [7.8s]

Kristen Welker [20:42:48]Let's talk about North Korea now. [0.9s]

President Trump [20:42:49]I'm not a typical politician. That's why I got elected. [1.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:42:51]Let's talk about. [0.3s]

President Trump [20:42:52]Let's get off the subject of China. Let's talk around sitting around the table. All right. Come on, Joe. You can do better. [4.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:42:57]We're going to talk about North Korea now. President Trump, you've met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times. You've talked about your beautiful letters with him. You've touted the fact that there hasn't been a war or a long-range missile test. And yet North Korea recently rolled out its biggest ever intercontinental ballistic missile and continues to develop its nuclear arsenal. Do you see that as a betrayal of the relationship you forged? Just 30 seconds here. So when I met with Barack Obama we sat in the White House right at the beginning and had a great conversation it was supposed to be 15 minutes and it was wll over 1 hour. He said that the biggest problem we have is North Korea. He indicated we will be in a war with North Korea. Guess what? It would be a nuclear war. And he does have plenty of nuclear capability. In the meantime, I have a very good relationship with him. Different kind of a guy, but he probably thinks the same thing about me. We have a different kind of a relationship. We have a very good relationship. And there's no war. And, you know, about two months ago, he broke into a certain area. They said, "Oh, there's going to be trouble." I said, "No, they're not, because he's not going to do that." And I was right. Look, instead of being in a war where millions of people, Seoul, you know, is 25 miles away. Millions and millions, thirty two million people in Seoul. Millions of people would be dead right now. [75.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:44:13]President Trump, that's 30 seconds. [0.1s]

President Trump [20:44:13]We don't have a war. We have a good relationship. [1.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:44:15]Vice President Biden, to you, North Korea conducted four nuclear tests under the Obama administration. Why do you think you would be able to rein in this persistent threat? [8.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:44:23]Because I'd make it clear which we are making clear to China they had to be part of the deal because here's the route I made it clear as spokesperson ministration when I went to China, they said, why are you moving your missile defense up so close? Why are you moving more forces here? Why are you continue to do military maneuvers with South Korea? I said because North Korea is a problem and we're going to continue to do it so we can control them. We're going to make sure we can control them and make sure they can not hurt us. And so if you want to do something about it, step up and help. If not is going to continue. What is he done? He's legitimized North Korea. He's talked about his good buddy who's a thug, a thug, and he talks about how we're better off and they are much more capable missiles able to reach U.S. territory much more easily than I ever did before. [49.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:45:12]Let me follow up with you, Vice President Biden. You've said you wouldn't meet with Kim Jong un without preconditions. Are there any conditions under which you would meet with him? [7.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:45:21]On the condition that he would agree that he would be drawing down his nuclear capacity. To get the Korean peninsula should be nuclear free zone. [8.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:45:29]All right. Let's move on to American families. [2.9s]

President Trump [20:45:32]They tried to meet with him. He wouldn't do it. He didn't like Obama. He didn't like them. He wouldn't do it. [8.4s]

Overtalk [20:45:42]James, respond to that. Because when we do. It,. You know [2.2s]

President Trump [20:45:44]It's OK. You know what? North Korea, we're not in a war. We have a good relationship. You know, people understand having a good relationship with leaders of other countries,. [8.8s]

Kristen Welker [20:45:53]We have a lot of, of a lot of questions to get through. Your response? [18.1s]

Vice President Biden [20:46:11]I understand we had a good relationship with Hitler before he infact invaded Europe, the rest of Europe. Come on, the reason why he would not meet with President Obama is because President Obama said we're going to talk about denuclearization. We're not going to legitimize you. We're going to continue to push stronger and stronger sanctions on you. That's why he wouldn't meet with us. [5.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:46:17]All right. Let's move on. [0.4s]

President Trump [20:46:17]And it didn't happen. [1.1s]

Kristen Welker [20:46:19]Let's move on and talk about American families, President Trump. We do need to move on.[1.1s]

Overtalk [20:45:42]Let's talk about the President Trump, OK? They left me a mess. North Korea was a mess when, in fact, if I remember the first two or three months since tonight. [11.3s]

President Trump [20:45:54]There was a very dangerous period in my first three months before we sort of worked things out a little bit. It was a very day. They left us a mess. And Obama would be, I think, the first to say it was the single biggest problem. He thought that our country. [14.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:46:08]OK, let's move on to American families and the economy. One of the issues that's most important to them is health care. As you both know, today, there was a key vote on a new Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Berrett. And health care is at the center of her confirmation fight. Over 20 million Americans get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. It's headed to the Supreme Court. And your administration, Mr. President, is advocating for the court to overturn it. If the Supreme Court does overturn that law, those 20 million Americans could lose their health insurance almost overnight. So what would you do if those people have their health insurance taken away? You have two minutes uninterrupted. [36.6s]

President Trump [20:46:45]First of all, I have already done something that nobody thought was possible. Through the legislature, I terminated the individual mandate. That is the worst part of Obamacare, as we call it, the individual mandate where you have to pay a fortune for the privilege of not having to pay for bad health insurance. I terminated it. It's gone. Now it's in court. Because Obamacare is no good. But then I made a decision. Run it as well as you can to my people, great people. Run it as well as you can. I could have gone the other route and made everybody very unhappy. They ran it. Premiums are down. Everything's down. Here's the problem. No matter how well you run it, it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminat it. We have the individual mandate done. I don't know that it's going to work. If we don't win, we will have to run it and we'll have Obamacare, but it'll be better run. But it no longer is Obamacare. Because without the individual mandate, it's much different. Preexisting conditions will always stay. What I would like to do is a much better health care, much better, will always protect people with preexisting. So I'd like to terminate Obamacare, come up with a brand new, beautiful health care. The Democrats will do it because there'll be tremendous pressure on them and we might even have the House by that time. And I think we're going to win the House. Okay, you'll see. But I think we're going to win the house. But come up with a better health care, always protecting people with preexisting conditions. And 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. These are people that love their health care, people that have been successful, middle income people, been successful. They have 180 million plans, 180 million people, families. Under what he wants to do, which will basically be socialized medicine. He won't even have a choice. They want to terminate one hundred and eighty million plans. We have done an incredible job on health care and we're going to do even better. [121.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:48:48]OK, Vice President Biden. Yes. This is for you. Your health care plan calls for building on Obamacare. So my question is, what is your plan? If the law is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court? You have two minutes uninterrupted. [11.6s]

Vice President Biden [20:49:00]What I'm going to do is pass Obamacare with a public option, become Bidencare. The public option is an option that says that if you, in fact, do not have the wherewithal to be, if you qualify for Medicaid and you do not have the wherewithal in your state to get Medicaid, you automatically enrolled providing competition for insurance companies. That's what's going to happen. Secondly, we're going to make sure we reduce the premiums and reduce drug prices by making sure that there's competition that doesn't exist now, by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the insurance companies. Thirdly, the idea that I want to eliminate private insurance is the reason why I had such a fight for, with 20 candidates for the nomination was I support private insurance. That's why not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare. They did not lose their insurance unless they chose they wanted to go to something else. Lastly, we're going to make sure we're in a situation that we actually protect preexisting. There's no way he can protect preexisting conditions. None, zero. You can't do it in the ether. He's been talking about this for a long time. There is no he's never come up with a plan. I guess we're going to get the preexisting condition plan the same time we get the infrastructure plan that we've been waiting for since 17, 18, 19, 20. The fact I still have a few more minutes. I know you're getting anxious. The the fact is that he's already cost the American people because of his terrible handling of the COVID virus and economic spillover. 10 million people have lost their private insurance. And he wants to take away 22 million more people who have under Obamacare and over a 110 million people with preexisting conditions. And all the people from COVID are going to have preexisting conditions. What are they going to do? [115.6s]

Kristen Welker [20:50:56]I have a follow up for you, Vice President Biden. It relates to something that President Trump said. He's accusing you of wanting socialized medicine. What do you say to people who have concerns that your health care plan, which includes a government insurance option, takes the country one step closer to a health care system run entirely by the government? [16.8s]

Vice President Biden [20:51:14]I say It's ridiculous. It's like saying that, you know, we're the idea that the fact that there's a public option and people can choose that makes it a socialist plan. Look, the difference between the president, I think health care is not a privilege. It's a right. Everyone should have the right to have affordable health care. And I am very proud of my plan has gotten endorsed by all the major labor unions, as well as as well as a whole range of other people who, in fact, are concerned in the medical field. This is something that's going to save people's lives and this is going to give some people an opportunity, an opportunity to have health care for their children. How many of you home are worried and rolling around in bed tonight wondering what in God's name you're going to do if you get sick because you've lost your home insurance, your your health insurance, your company's gone under? We have to provide health insurance for people at an affordable rate. And that's what I do. [50.5s]

Kristen Welker [20:52:06]President Trump, your response? [0.0s]

President Trump [20:52:06]He was there for 47 years. He didn't do it. He was now there as vice president for eight years. And it's not like it was 25 years ago. It was three and three quarters. It was just a little while ago. Right. Less than four years ago. He didn't do anything. He didn't do it. He wants socialized medicine. And it's not that he wants it. His vice president, I mean, she is is more liberal than Bernie Sanders and wants it even more. Bernie Sanders wants it. The Democrats want it. You're going to have socialized medicine just like you want with fracking. We're not going to have fracking. We're going to stop fracking. We're going to stop fracking. Then he goes to Pennsylvania after he gets a nomination where he got very lucky to get it and he goes to Pennsylvania and he says, oh, we're going to have fracking. And you never ask that question. And by the way, so far, I respect very much the way you're handling this. I have to say, by the way, somebody should ask the question you can ask. He goes for a year. [53.1s]

Overtalk [20:52:59]There will be we do have a number of we have a number of topics. No, no. But that's a question. We're going to get to the same thing with Socializr I, the. [8.8s]

Kristen Welker [20:53:08]Vice president. Your response, please. [1.5s]

Vice President Biden [20:53:09]My response is people deserve to have affordable health care, period, period, period, period. And the Biden Care proposal will, in fact, provide for that affordable health care, lower premiums. And what we're going to do is going to cost some money. It's going to cost over seven hundred and fifty billion dollars over 10 years to do it. And they're going to have lower premiums. You can buy into the better plans, the cheaper plans, lower your premiums, deal with unexpected billing and have your drug prices drop significantly. He keeps talking about it. He hasn't done a thing for anybody on health care, not a thing. [32.4s]

Kristen Welker [20:53:43]I want to talk about what's happening on Capitol Hill. [0.6s]

President Trump [20:53:44]When he says "public option", he's talking about socialized medicine and health care. When he talks about a public option, he's talking about destroying your Medicare, and destroying your Social Security. And this whole country will come down. You know, Bernie Sanders tried it at his state. His governor was a very liberal governor. They want to make it work. It was impossible to work. [25.3s]

Vice President Biden [20:54:09]He's a very confused guy. He thinks he's running against somebody else. He's running against Joe Biden. I beat all those other people because I disagreed with them. Joe Biden, he's running against. And the idea that we're in a situation that they're going to destroy Medicare. This is the guy that the actuary at Medicare said if - in fact that's Social Security -  if in fact, he continues to withhold his plan to withhold the tax on Social Security, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023 with no way to make up for it. This is the guy who's tried to cut Medicare. I mean, the idea that Donald Trump is lecturing me on Social Security and Medicare, come on. [43.2s]

President Trump [20:54:53]He tried to get rid of it. He tried to hurt Social Security years ago, years ago. Go back and look at the records. He tried to hurt Social Security years ago. Last week, they said the stock market will boom if I'm elected. If he's elected, the stock market will crash.[19.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:55:17]The idea that the stock market is booming is his only a measure of what's happening where I come from in Scranton and Claymont, that people don't live off of the stock market. Just in the last three years during this crisis, the billionaires in this country made, according to the Wall Street, $700 billion more dollars, $700 billion more dollars, because that's his only measure. What happens to the ordinary people out there? What happens to them? [28.9s]

President Trump [20:55:46]401ks are through the roof. Peoples' stock are through the roof. And he doesn't come from Scranton. That's like one of the he lived there for a short period of time before he even knew, and he left and the people Pennsylvania will show you that. [16.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:56:03]As of tonight, more than 12 million people are out of work, and as of tonight, eight million more Americans have fallen into poverty and more families are going hungry every day. Those hit hardest are women, and people of color. They see Washington fighting over a relief bill. Mr. President, why haven't you been able to get them the help they need? 30 seconds here . [19.4s]

President Trump [20:56:23]Because Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to approve it. I do. [2.2s]

Kristen Welker [20:56:26]But you're the president. [0.9s]

President Trump [20:56:27]I do. But I still have to get unfortunately, that's one of the reasons I think we're going to take over the house because of her. Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to approve anything because she'd love to have some victories on a date called November 3rd. Nancy Pelosi does not want to approve it. We are ready, willing and able to do something. Don't forget, we've already approved three plans and it's gone through, including the Democrats. In all fairness, this one, she doesn't want us near the election because she thinks it helps her politically. I think it hurts her politically. [28.7s]

Kristen Welker [20:56:55]All right, Mr. Vice President... [1.1s]

Vice President Biden [20:56:57]The Republican leader in the United States Senate said he can't pass it. He will not be able to pass it. He does not have Republican votes. Why is he talking to his Republican friends? [10.3s]

Kristen Welker [20:57:07]Let me follow up with you, vice president Biden. We made it a republic. Let me ask Vice President Biden a question. You are the leader of the Democratic Party. Why have you not pushed the Democrats to get a deal for the American people? [10.9s]

Vice President Biden [20:57:18]I have. And they have pushed us. Look, they passed this act all the way back in the beginning of the summer. This is like it's not new. It's been out there. This Heroes Act have been sitting there and look at what's happening. When I was in charge of the Recovery Act with eight hundred billion dollars, I was able to get one hundred and forty five billion dollars to local communities that have to balance their budgets. The states have to balance the budget, then have to fire fire. They have to fire firefighters, teachers, first responders, law enforcement officers so they could keep their cities and counties running. He will not support that. They have not done a thing for them. And Mitch McConnell said let them go bankrupt. Let them go bankrupt. Come on, What's the matter? [43.1s]

President Trump [20:58:01]The bill that was passed in the House was a bailout of badly run high crime Democrat, all run by Democrat cities and states. It was a way of getting a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars to these states. It was also a way of getting a lot of money from our people's pockets to people that come into our country illegally. We were going to take care of everything for them. And what that does, and I'd love to do that. I'd love to help them. But what that does, everybody all over the world will start pouring into our country. We can't do it. This was a way of taking care of them. This was a way of spending on things that had nothing to do with covid, as per your question. But it was really a big bailout for badly run Democrat cities and states. [42.8s]

Vice President Biden [20:58:45]If I get elected, I'm not going to I'm running as a proud Democrat, but I'm going to be an American president. I don't see red states and blue states. What I see as American United States and folks, every single state out there finds themself in trouble. They're going to start laying off whether they're red or blue, cops, firefighters, first responders, because teachers, because they have to balance their budget. And the founders were smart. They allowed the federal government to deficit spend to compensate for the United States of America. [29.9s]

Kristen Welker [20:59:15]I want to talk about the minimum wage, gentlemen. Mr. Vice President, we are talking a lot about struggling small businesses and business owners these days. Do you think this is the right time to ask them to raise the minimum wage? You, of course, support a fifteen dollar at a minimum. [13.7s]

Vice President Biden [20:59:29]I do, because I think one of the things we're going to have to do is we're going to have to bail them out, too. We should be bailing them out now, those small businesses, you got one in six of them going under. They're not going to be able to make it back. They passed a package that allows us to be able to call PPP. Money, supposed to go to help them do everything from organize how they can deal with their businesses being open safely, schools, how they can make classrooms smaller, how they can hire more teachers, how they can put ventilation systems in. They need the help for businesses as well as the schools need the help. But this, because these guys will not help them, is not giving them any of the money. [41.0s]

Overtalk [21:00:10]We are going to move on to the ones. [2.4s]

President Trump [21:00:12]That we have small businesses by raising the minimum wage. That's not helping. I think it should be a state option. Alabama is different than New York. New York is different from Vermont. Every state is different. It should be a state option. You said very well. It's very important. We have to help our small businesses. How are you helping your small businesses when you're forcing wages? What's going to happen? And what's been proven to happen is when you do that, these small businesses fire many of their employees. [26.8s]

Kristen Welker [21:00:40]You are raising the federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. You said recently you would consider raising the federal minimum wage right now. Is that still the case? [8.7s]

President Trump [21:00:49]I would consider it an act to an extent, but it's really not what I in a second administration, but not to a level that's going to put all these businesses out of business. It should be a state option. Look, every different places I know different places, they're all different. Some places. Fifteen dollars is not so bad in other places. Other states. Fifteen dollars. President Trump, thank you. [21.8s]

Kristen Welker [21:01:11]Quick response. Vice President Biden. [1.6s]

Vice President Biden [21:01:13]Two jobs, one job below poverty. People are making six, seven, eight bucks an hour. These first responders we all clap for as they come down the street because they've allowed us to make it. What's happening? They deserve a minimum wage of fifteen dollars. Anything below that puts you below the poverty level. And there is no evidence that when you raise the minimum wage, businesses go out of business. That is simply not true. [26.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:01:39]We're going to talk about immigration. We're going to talk about immigration now, gentlemen, and we're going to talk about families in this context. Mr. President, your administration separated children from their parents at the border. At least four thousand kids. You've since reversed your zero tolerance policy, but the United States can't locate the parents of more than 500 children. So how will these families ever be reunited? [22.0s]

President Trump [21:02:02]The children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. We now have as strong a border as we've ever had. We're over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in. But they have to come in legally and they come in through merit. [20.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:02:24]But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?  [0.9s]

President Trump [21:02:26]Let me just say. They built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages and then they had picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages. And they said, look at these cages. President Trump built them. And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him. [16.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:02:43]Do you have a plan to reunite the kids?[1.4s]

President Trump [21:02:44]Yes, we're working on it very, we're trying very hard. But a lot of these kids come out without the parents. They come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs. [8.1s]

Kristen Welker [21:02:53]Vice President Biden, let me bring you into this conversation, quick response and then another question to you. [4.0s]

Vice President Biden [21:02:57]These 500 plus kids came with parents. They separated them at the border to make it a disincentive to come to begin with. Big, real tough. We're really strong. And guess what? They can not, its 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. [25.8s]

Kristen Welker [21:03:23]Let me ask you a follow up question. [0.5s]

President Trump [21:03:24]Kristen, they did it. We changed the policy. [2.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:03:28]Your response to that? [0.4s]

Vice President Biden [21:03:28]We did not separate. [1.2s]

President Trump [21:03:30]They built the cages. Who built the cages, Joe? [0.2s]

Vice President Biden [21:03:30]Let's talk about what we're talking about. [0.0s]

President Trump [21:03:30]Who built the cages, Joe? [0.0s]

[21:03:30]Let's talk about what we're talking about. What happened? Parents were ripped, their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now, they can not find over five hundred of sets of those parents. And those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It's criminal. It's criminal.[3.3s]

Kristen Welker [21:03:39]Let me ask you about immigration. Ten seconds, and then I need to ask you a question.[0.3s]

President Trump [21:03:40]I will say this. I went down with reporters and everything. They are so well taken care of. They're in facilities that were so clean. [7.6s]

Kristen Welker [21:03:49]But some of them haven't been reunited with their families. [0.0s]

President Trump [21:03:49]But just ask one question. Who built the cages? I'd love you to ask him that. Who built the cages? [5.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:03:55]Let me ask about your immigration policy, Mr. Vice President. The Obama administration did fail to deliver immigration reform, which had been a key promise during the administration. It also presided over record deportations, as well as family detentions at the border before changing course. So why should voters trust you with an immigration overhaul now? [17.5s]

Vice President Biden [21:04:12]Because we made a mistake. It took too long to get it right. Took too long to get it right. I'll be President of the United States, not Vice President of the United States. And the fact is, I've made it very clear within 100 days I'm going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so called dreamers, they're going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a pth to citizenship. The idea that they are being sent home by this guy and they want to do that is they're going to a country they've never seen before. I can imagine you're five years old. Your parents are taking across the Rio Grande River and is and it's illegal. And you say, Mom, leave me here. I'm not going to go with you. They've been here. Many of our models, over twenty thousand are first responders out there taking care of people during this crisis. We owe them. We owe them. [58.6s]

Kristen Welker [21:05:13]President Trump? [0.0s]

President Trump [21:05:13]Kristen, he had eight years to do what he said he was going to do. And I've changed without having a specific we got rid of catch and release. We got rid of a lot of horrible things that they put in and that they lived with. But he had eight years. He was vice president. He did nothing except build cages to keep children in. [23.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:05:36]Vice President Biden, your response? [1.5s]

Vice President Biden [21:05:38]The catch and release. You know what he's talking about there? If, in fact, you had a family came across, they're arrested. They, in fact, were given a date to show up for their hearing. They were released. And guess what? They showed up for a hearing. This is the first President of the United States of America that's anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That's never happened before in America. That's never happened before in America. You come to the United States and you make your case that you seek asylum based on the following on the following premise. Why I deserve it under American law. They're sitting in squalor on the other side of the river. [37.6s]

Kristen Welker [21:06:17]President Trump, your response, 30 seconds and then we'll move on. [2.6s]

President Trump [21:06:19]It he just shows that he has no understanding of immigration or the laws. Catch and release is a disaster. A murderer would come in, a rapist would come in, a very bad person would come in. We would take their name. We have to release them into our country. And then you say they come back, less than one percent of the people come back. We have to send ICE out and Border Patrol out to find them. We would say come back in two years, three years. We're going to give you a court case. You need Perry Mason. We're going to give you a court case. When you say they come back, they don't come back Joe. They never come back. Only the really, I hate to say this, but those with the lowest IQ, they might come back.  [46.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:07:06]Ok President Trump, let's give Vice President Biden, a chance to respond. And then we're going to move on to the next section. [2.7s]

President Trump [21:07:09]You don't know the law, Joe. [0.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:07:10]Vice President Biden, your response? [1.0s]

Vice President Biden [21:07:12]No, the law he's telling you is simply not true. Check it out. [1.6s]

President Trump [21:07:15]They don't come back. [0.7s]

Vice President Biden [21:07:16]Check it out. [0.5s]

Kristen Welker [21:07:17]All right, let's move on. [0.9s]

President Trump [21:07:18]But we don't have to worry about it. I terminated it, so we have to worry about it anymore. [2.8s]

Kristen Welker [21:07:21]Right let's move on to the next section. [0.7s]

Vice President Biden [21:07:22]There are five hundred twenty five kids not knowing where in God's name they're going to be and lost their parent. [3.5s]

President Trump [21:07:26]Go ahead. [0.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:07:26]All right. Let's talk about our next section, which is Race in America. And I want to talk about the way black and brown Americans experience race in this country. Part of that experience is something called the talk. It happens regardless of class and income. Parents who feel they have no choice but to prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted, including by the police, for no reason other than the color of their skin. Mr. Vice President, in the next two minutes, I want you to speak directly to these families. Do you understand why these parents fear for their children? [36.2s]

Vice President Biden [21:08:03]I do. I do. You know, my daughter is a social worker and she's all she's written a lot about this. She has her graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania social work. And, you know, one of the reasons why I ended up working on the east side of Wilmington, Delaware, which is 90 percent African-American, was to learn more about what was going on, what I did. And I never had to tell my daughter if she's pulled over, make sure she puts for a traffic stop, put both hands on top of the wheel and don't reach for the glove box because someone may shoot you. But a black parent, no matter how wealthy or how poor they are, has to teach their child, when you're walking down the street, don't have a hoodie on when you go across the street.  Making sure that you in fact, if you get pulled over, just yes sir, no, sir. Hands on top of the wheel, because you are, in fact, the victim, whether you're a person making 300000, three hundred thousand dollars a year person or someone who's on on on food stamps. The fact of the matter is there is institutional racism in America. And we have always said we've never lived up to it, that we hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created equal or guess what, we have never, ever lived up to, but we've all constantly been moving the needle further and further to inclusion, not exclusion. This is the first president to come along and that's the end of that. We're not going to do that anymore. We have to provide for economic opportunity, better education, better health care, better access to schooling, better access to opportunity to borrow money to start businesses. All the things we can do. And I've laid out a clear plan as to how to do those things just to give people a shot. It's about accumulating the ability to have wealth as well as it is to be free from violence. [111.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:09:55]President Trump, same question to you. And let me remind you of the question. I would like you to speak directly to these families. Do you understand why these parents fear for their children? [9.0s]

President Trump [21:10:04]Yes, I do. And again, he's been in government forty seven years. He never did a thing except in 1994, when he did such harm to the black community. And they were called, he called them super predators. And he said that. He said it, super predators. And they have never lived that down, 1994, your crime bill, the super predators. Nobody has done more for the black community than Donald Trump. And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done. Criminal justice reform, obama and Joe didn't do it. I don't even think they tried because they had no chance at doing it. They might have wanted to do it. But if you had to see the arms I had to twist to get that done, it was not a pretty picture. And everybody knows it, including some very liberal people that cried in my office. They cried in the Oval Office. Two weeks later, they're out saying, "Gee, we have to defeat him." Criminal justice reform, prison reform, opportunity zones with Tim Scott, a great senator from South Carolina. He came in with this incredible idea for opportunity zones. It's one of the most successful programs. People don't talk about it. Tremendous investment is being made. Biggest beneficiary, the black and Hispanic communities and then Historically Back Colleges and Universities. After three years of coming to the office. I love some of those guys. They were great. They came into the office and they said, I said, "What are you doing after three years?" I said, "Why do you keep coming back?" "Because we have no funding." I said, "You don't have to come back every year." "We have to come back." Because President Obama would never give them long-term funding. And I did, ten-year, long-term funding. And I gave them more money than they asked for. Because I said, "I think you need more." And I said, "The only bad part about this is I may never see you again." Because I got very friendly with them. And they like me and I like them. But I saved Historically Black Colleges and Universities. [123.9s]

Kristen Welker [21:12:08]OK, and we're going to talk about both of your records. But your response to that, Mr. Vice President. [18.4s]

Vice President Biden [21:12:27]My response to that is I never, ever said what he accused me of saying. The fact of the matter is in 2000, though, after the crime bill had been in the law for a while, this is a guy who said, "Well, the problem with the crime bill, there's not enough people in jail, there's not enough people in jail". And go on my website, get the quote, the date when he said it, "Not enough people." He talked about marauding gangs, young gangs and the people who are going to maraud our cities. This is a guy who in the Central Park Five, five innocent black kids, you continue to push for making sure that they got the death penalty. None of them were, none of them were guilty of what the crime of the crimes that were suggested. Granted he did, in fact, let twenty people he commuted twenty peoples' sentences. We commuted over a thousand people sentences, over a thousand. The very law he's talking about is a law that in fact initiated by Barack Obama. And secondly, we're in a situation here where we, the federal prison system was reduced by thirty eight thousand people under our administration. And one of these things we should be doing there should be no, no minimum mandatories in the law. That's why I'm offering twenty billion dollars to states to change their state laws, to eliminate minimum mandatories and set up drug courts. No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem. They should be going to rehabilitation, not to jail. We should fundamentally change the system and that's what I'm going to do. [75.8s]

President Trump [21:13:42]But why didn't he do it four years ago? Why didn't you do that four years ago? Even less than that. Why didn't you do it when you were vice president. You keep talking about all these things you're going to do and you're going to do this. But you were there just a short time ago and you guys did nothing. You know, Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama because you did a poor job. If I thought you did a good job, I would have never run. I would have never run. I ran because of you. I'm looking at you now. You're a politician. I ran because of you. [30.6s]

Kristen Welker [21:14:13]Alright. Vice President Biden, your response to that? And then I do have some questions for both of you. [3.1s]

Vice President Biden [21:14:17]I tell you what. I hope he does will look at me, because what's happening here is, you know who I am, you know who he is. You know, his character. You know my character. You know our reputation for honor and telling the truth. I am anxious to have this race. I'm anxious to see this take place. I am... The character of the country is on the ballot. Our characters in the ballot look at us closely. [23.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:14:41]Let me ask then. Please respond to that. We're going to have follow up questions. [2.5s]

President Trump [21:14:45]It's true about Russia, Ukraine, China, other countries, Iraq. If this is true, then he's a corrupt politician. So don't give me this stuff about how you're this innocent baby Joe. They're calling you a corrupt politician. [13.5s]

Overtalk [21:14:59]Nobody. I want to say on the issue of race, we're talking about the laptop, President Trump, everybody talking about race right now. And I do want to stay on the issue of race. President Trump. [9.2s]

Vice President Biden [21:15:10]Let me respond to that because look, there are 50 former National intelligence folks who said that what this he's accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this is has all the four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his and his good friend, Rudy Giuliani. [23.1s]

Overtalk [21:15:33]You mean the laptop is now another Russia? Russia? Russia hoax? that's exactly why this is exactly what this is, where he's going to look. All right. Up is Russia. [10.1s]

Kristen Welker [21:15:44]I want to stay on the issue of race. [1.5s]

President Trump [21:15:45]You have to be kidding. Here we go again with Russia. [2.9s]

Kristen Welker [21:15:48]We're going to continue on the issue of race. Mr. President, you've described the Black Lives Matter movement as a symbol of hate. You've shared a video of a man chanting white power to millions of your supporters. You've said that black professional athletes exercising their First Amendment rights should be fired. What do you say to Americans who say that kind of language from a president is contributing to a climate of hate? And racial strife?  [23.1s]

President Trump [21:16:12]Well you have to understand the first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, they were chanting pigs in a blanket, talking about police, pigs, pigs, talking about our police, pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon. I said, that's a horrible thing. And they were marching down the street. And that was my first glimpse of Black Lives Matter. I thought it was a terrible thing. As far as my relationships with all people, I think I have great relationships with all people. I am the least racist person in this room. [32.1s]

Kristen Welker [21:16:44]Well, what do you say to Americans who are concerned by that rhetoric? [2.7s]

[21:16:46]I don't I mean, I don't know what to say. I got criminal justice reform done and prison reform and opportunity zones. I took care of black colleges and universities. I don't know what to say. They can say anything. I mean, they can say anything. It's a very it's makes me sad because I am 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, OK. [28.8s]

Kristen Welker [21:17:15]Vice President Biden, let me ask you very quickly and then I have a follow up question for you. [3.7s]

Vice President Biden [21:17:19]Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire, every single one started off his campaign coming down the escalator saying you get rid of those Mexican rapists. He's banned Muslims because they're Muslims. He has moved around and made everything worse. Across the board. He says to them about the poor boys. Last time we were on stage here, he said, I tell them to stand down and stand ready. Come on. This guy is a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn. [33.3s]

Kristen Welker [21:17:53]President Trump, I'm going to give you ten seconds to respond, and then I have a follow up question.[2.4s]

Overtalk [21:17:56]You made a reference to Abraham Lincoln. Where did that come in? I mean, you said Abraham Lincoln where it said no, no. I said not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what I've done for the black community. And I'm sad to say I'm Abraham Lincoln. I said not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what I've done for the black community. Now, you have done nothing other than the crime bill which put God that tens of thousands of black men mostly in jail. [31.9s]

Kristen Welker [21:18:28] All right. You know what? Let me ask Vice President Biden a question. [1.1s]

President Trump [21:18:30]If you look at what's happening with the voting right now, they remember, you treated them a very very badly. They just take a look at what's happening out there. [7.9s]

Kristen Welker [21:18:38]Vice President Biden, let me give you a chance to respond within this context. Crime bills that you supported in the 80s and 90s contributed to the incarceration of tens of thousands of young black men who had small amounts of drugs in their possession. They are sons. They are brothers, they're fathers, they're uncles whose families are still to this day some of them are suffering the consequences. So speak to those families. Why should they vote for you? [22.1s]

Vice President Biden [21:19:00]One of the things they said in the 80s, we passed one hundred percent. All 100 senators voted for it, a bill on drugs and how to deal with drugs. It was a mistake. I've been trying to change the sentencing and particularly the portion on cocaine. That's why I've been arguing that, in fact, we should not send anyone to jail for a pure drug offense. They should be going into treatment across the board. That's what we should be spending money. That's why I set up drug courts, which are never funded by Republican friends. They should not be going to jail for a drug or an alcohol problem. They should be going into treatment, treatment. That's what we've been trying to do. That's what I'm going to get done, because I think the American people have now seen that, in fact, it was a mistake to pass those laws relating to drug, but they were not in the crime bill. [52.8s]

President Trump [21:19:53]But why didn't he get it done? It's all talk, no action with these politicians. Why didn't he get it done? That's what I'm going to do when I become president. You were vice president along with Obama as your president, your leader for eight years. Why didn't you get it done yet? Eight years to get it done. Now you're saying you're going to get it done because you're all talk and no action, Joe. [20.9s]

Overtalk [21:20:14]We've got a lot of it done. We released thirty eight and they got thirty eight thousand prisoners left. You got nothing done. [6.0s]

Vice President Biden [21:20:20]Thirty eight thousand prisoners were released from federal prison. We have there were over a thousand people who were given clemency. We had in fact, we're the ones who put in the legislation saying we could look at pattern and practice of police departments and what they were doing, how they're conducting themselves. I could go on, but we began the process. We began the process. We lost an election. That's why I'm running to win back that election and change this terrible policy. [25.9s]

Overtalk [21:20:46]I just is the number one question. [2.2s]

President Trump [21:20:49]Why didn't you do it in the eight years a short time ago? Why didn't you do it? You just said, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this. You put tens of thousands of mostly black young men in prison, now you're saying you're going to undo that. Why didn't you get it done? You had eight years with Obama. You know why Joe? Because you're all talk and no action. [22.6s]

Kristen Welker [21:21:11]All right, Vice President Biden. Then we're going to move on to the next section. [2.2s]

Vice President Biden [21:21:14]We had a Republican Congress. That's the answer. [3.6s]

President Trump [21:21:19]You got to talk them into it, Joe. Sometimes you got to talk them into it. [3.1s]

Overtalk [21:21:22]We're going to move on to our next session like I did with criminal justice reform. [3.8s]

President Trump [21:21:26]I had to talk Democrats into it.[1.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:21:28]Gentlemen, we're running out of time. So we got to get on to climate change, please. You both have very different visions on climate change. President Trump, you say that environmental regulations have hurt jobs in the energy sector. Vice President Biden, you have said you see addressing climate change as an opportunity to create new jobs for each of you. How would you both combat climate change and support job growth at the same time, starting with you, President Trump, you have two minutes uninterrupted. [28.7s]

President Trump [21:21:57]So we have the trillion trees program. We have so many different programs. I do love the environment, but what I want is the cleanest, crystal clear water, the cleanest air we have the best, lowest number in carbon emissions, which is a big standard that I notice Obama goes with all the time. Not Joe. I haven't heard Joe use the term because I'm not sure he knows what it represents or means, but I have heard Obama use it. And we have the best carbon emission numbers that we've had in thirty five years under this administration. We are working so well with industry. But here's what we can't do. Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia, look at India. It's filthy. The the air is filthy. The Paris accord. I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly. When they put us in there, they did us a great disservice. They were going to take away our businesses. I will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris Accord. It was so unfair. China doesn't kick in until 2030. Russia goes back to a low standard and we kicked in right away. It would have been. It would have been. It would have destroyed our businesses. So you ready. We have done an incredible job environmentally. We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water and the best carbon emission standards that we've seen in many, many years. [91.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:23:30]Vice President Biden. [0.7s]

President Trump [21:23:30]We haven't destroyed our industries. [1.0s]

Kristen Welker [21:23:32]Vice President Biden, two minutes to you. Uninterrupted. [1.9s]

Vice President Biden [21:23:36]Climate change, climate warming, global warming is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it. And we're told by all the leading scientists in the world, we don't have much time. We're going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to ten years, four more years of this man eliminating all the regulations that were put in by us to clean up the climate, to clean up, to limit the limit of emissions, will put us in a position where we are going to be in real trouble. Here's where we have a great opportunity. I was able to get both, all the environmental organizations as well as labor, the people worried about jobs to support my climate plan, because what it does, it will create millions of new good paying jobs. We're going to invest in, for example, 500000, 50000, excuse me, 50000 charging stations on our highways so that we can own the electric car market of the future. In the meantime, China is doing that. We're going to be in a position where we're going to see to it that we're going to take four million existing billion, buildings and two million existing homes and retrofit them so they don't leak as much energy, saving hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in the process and creating a significant number of jobs. And by the way, the whole idea of what this is all going to do, it's going to create millions of jobs and it's going to clean the environment. Our health and our jobs are at stake. That's what's happening. And right now, by the way, Wall Street firms indicated that my plan, my, my plan will in fact create 18.6 million jobs, seven million more than his, this from Wall Street. And I'll create one trillion dollars more in economic growth than his proposal does. Not on climate, just on the economy. [114.0s]

Kristen Welker [21:25:30]President Trump, your response. [0.5s]

President Trump [21:25:31]They came out and said very strongly $6,500 will be taken away from families under his plan, that his plan is an economic disaster. If you look at what he wants to do, you know, the, if you look at his plan doesn't do it and, you know, developed it? AOC Plus Three. They know nothing about the climate. She's got a good line of stuff, but she knows nothing about the climate. And they're all hopping through hoops for AOC Plus Three. Look, a real plan costs $100 trillion. If we had the best year, in the history of our country, for 100 years, we would not even come close to a number like that. When he says buildings, they want to take buildings down because they want to make bigger windows into smaller windows. As far as they're concerned, if you had no window, it would be a lovely thing. This is the craziest plan that anybody has ever seen. And this wasn't done by smart people. This wasn't done by anybody. Frankly, I don't even know how it can be good politically. They want to spend $100 trillion. That's their real number. He's trying to say it was six. It's $100 trillion. They want to knock down buildings and build new buildings with little, tiny, small windows. I mean, and many other things and many other things. [76.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:26:47]Let me have the Vice President respond and we're running out of time and we have a lot more questions. So let's hear from the Vice President. I have a number more questions.. [6.9s]

Vice President Biden [21:26:54]I don't know where he comes from. I don't know where he comes up with his numbers in a hundred trillion dollars. Give me a break. This plan was this is plans endorsed by every major, every major environmental group and every labor group labor, because they know the future lies, the future lies in us being able to breathe and they know they're good jobs and getting us there. And by the way, the fastest growing industry in America are is is the electric the excuse me, solar energy and wind. He thinks wind causes cancer. Windmills is the fastest growing jobs and they pay good prevailing wages. Forty five, 50 bucks an hour. We can grow and we can be cleaner if we go the route I propose. [49.1s]

Kristen Welker [21:27:43]President Trump. [0.4s]

President Trump [21:27:45]We are energy independent for the first time. We don't need all of these countries that we had to fight war over because we needed their energy. We are energy independent. I know more about wind than you do, but it's extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. It's got a lot of problems. And they happen to make the windmills in both Germany and China and the fumes coming up. If you're a believer in carbon emission, the fumes coming up to make these massive windmills is more than anything that we're talking about with natural gas, which is very clean one other thing, if I may say I love solar, but solar doesn't quite have it yet. It's not powerful it to to really run our big, beautiful factories that we need to compete with the world so its all a pipe dream but you know what we'll do? We're going to have the greatest economy in the world but if you want to kill the economy get rid of your oil industry. And what about fracking? [61.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:28:47]Let me allow Vice President Biden to respond.[0.0s]

Vice President Biden [21:28:47]I never said I oppose fracking. [2.2s]

Overtalk [21:28:49]You said on tape. I did show the tape. Put it on your website. Put it on. Put it on the website. The fact of the matter is that he's lying. [7.9s]

Kristen Welker [21:28:58]Would you rule out banning fracking? [1.7s]

Vice President Biden [21:29:00]I do rule out banning fracking because the answer we need we need other industries to transition to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by twenty twenty five. What I will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from the fracking, capture the emissions from gas. We can do that and we can do that by investing money and doing is a transition to that. [27.4s]

Kristen Welker [21:29:27]I have one more question. In this part of the. [1.8s]

President Trump [21:29:30]Exuse me, he was against fracking. He said it. I will show that to you tomorrow. I am against fracking until he got the nomination, went to Pennsylvania. Then he said, But you know what, Pennsylvania, he'll be against it very soon because his party is totally against fracking. [13.4s]

Vice President Biden [21:29:44]Fracking on federal land. I said no fracking, or you said oil. [3.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:29:48]Let me ask this final question in this section and then I want to move on to our final section. President Trump, people of color are much more likely to live near oil refineries and chemical plant in Texas there are families who worry theey are making them sick. Your administration has rolled back regualations on these kinds of facilities, why should these families give you another four years in office? [12.5s]

President Trump [21:30:00]The families that we're talking about are employed happily and they're making a lot of money, more money than they've ever made. If you look at the kind of numbers that we've produced for Hispanic or black, or Asian, it's nine times greater the percentage gain than it was under in three years than it was under eight years of the two of them, to put it nicely, nine times more. Now somebody lives. I have not heard the numbers or the statistics statistics that you're saying, but they're making a tremendous amount of money economically. We saved it and I saved it again a number of months ago when oil was crashing because of the pandemic. We saved it. We got to say what you want about relationship. We got Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Russia to cut back, way back. We saved our oil industry and now it's very vibrant again. And everybody has very inexpensive gasoline. Remember that.[66.2s]

Kristen Welker [21:31:06]Vice President Biden, your response. And then we're going to have a final question for both of you. [4.2s]

Vice President Biden [21:31:10]My response is that those people live on what they call fence line. He doesn't understand this. They live near chemical plants that in fact pollute, chemical plants and oil plants and refineries that pollute. I used to live near that when I was growing up in Claymont, Delaware. And there are the more oil refineries in Marcus Hook and the Delaware River than there is in any place including in Houston at the time. When my Mom would get in the car when the first frost to drive me to school, turn on the windshield wipers. There would be an oil slick in the window. That's why so many people in my state were dying and getting cancer. The fact is those fence line communities, it doesn't matter what you're paying them, it matters how you keep them safe. What do you do? You impose restrictions on the pollutants coming out of those fence line communities.[7.3s]

Kristen Welker [21:32:01]Ok I have one final question. [0.3s]

President Trump [21:32:02]Would he close down the oil industry? [0.0s]

Overtalk [21:32:02]Would you close down the oil industry? By the way I would a transition from the oil industry, yes. That's a big statement. That is a big statement because I would stop. [6.5s]

Kristen Welker [21:32:08]Why would you do that? [0.9s]

Vice President Biden [21:32:09]Because the oil industry pollutes significantly. Here's the deal. Well, if you let me finish the statement, because it has to be replaced by renewable energy over time, over time. And I'd stop giving to the oil industry, I'd stop giving them federal subsidies. You won't get federal subsidies to the gas, excuse me, to the solar and wind. Yeah. Why are we giving it to oil industry? [27.3s]

President Trump [21:32:36]We actually do go to solar and wind. That's maybe the biggest statement in terms of business. That's a biggest statement because basically what he's saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma? [8.2s]

Overtalk [21:32:44]Vice President Biden, let me give you ten Ohio and I have to get to the final question, Vice President Biden.[0.0s]

Vice President Biden [21:32:44]He takes everything out of context but the point is, look: we have to move toward a net zero emissions. The first place to do that by the year 2035 is in energy production, by 2050 totally. [0.0s]

Overtalk [21:32:44]Is he going to get China to do it? We have to move to our final question No I'm going to rejoin Paris Accord and make China abide by what they agreed to do. [34.7s]

Kristen Welker [21:33:19]All right. This is about leadership, gentlemen. And this first question does go to you, President Trump. Imagine this is your Inauguration Day. What will you say in your address to Americans who did not vote for you? You'll each have one minute, starting with you.[10.4s]

President Trump [21:33:45]We have to make our country totally successful, as it was prior to the plague coming in from China. Now we're rebuilding it and we're doing record numbers, 11.4 million jobs in a short period of time, etc. But I will tell you, go back before the plague came in, just before, I was getting calls from people that were not normally people that would call me. They wanted to get together. We had the best black unemployment numbers in the history of our country, Hispanic, women, Asian, people with diplomas, with no diplomas, MIT graduates, number one in the class. Everybody had the best numbers. And you know what, the other side wanted to get together. They wanted to unify. Success is going to bring us together. We are on the road to success. But I'm cutting taxes and he wants to raise everybody's taxes and he wants to put new regulations on everything. He will kill it. If he gets and you will have a depression, the likes of which you've never seen, your 401ks will go to hell. And it'll be a very, very sad day for this country. [53.0s]

Kristen Welker [21:34:38]All right Vice President Biden, same question to you. What will you say during your inaugural address to Americans who did not vote for you? [7.7s]

Vice President Biden [21:34:46]I will say I'm an American president. I represent all of you, whether you voted for me or against me. And I'm going to make sure that you're represented. I'm going to give you hope. We're going to move, we're going to choose science over fiction. We're going to choose hope over fear. We're going to choose to move forward because we have enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to make things better. We can grow this economy. We can deal with the systemic racism. And at the same time, we can make sure that our economy is being run and moved and motivated by clean energy, creating millions of new jobs. And that's the fact that's what we're going to do. And I'm going to say, as I said at the beginning, what is on the ballot here is the character of this country: decency, honor, respect, treating people with dignity, making sure that everyone has an even chance. And I'm going to make sure you get that. You haven't been getting it the last four years. [56.5s]

Kristen Welker [21:35:42]Alright. I want to thank you both for a very robust hour and a half, a fantastic debate. Really appreciate it. President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, thank you to Belmont University for hosting us tonight. And most importantly, thank you to those watching tonight. Election Day is November 3rd. Don't forget to vote. Thank you, everyone, and have a great night. [22.1s]