Second Presidential Debate, Oct. 22, 2020, 1080p

Duration: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes



Presidential debate:

Key takeaways from the Trump-Biden showdown

by Anthony Zurcher, https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54650681



The mute button, or at least the threat of it, seemed to work. In the second

presidential debate, Donald Trump and Joe Biden candidates were more restrained.



The candidates allowed each other to speak. They used respectful tones. Even

when they went on the attack, they did so in a calm, deliberate manner.



After a pugnacious first debate, during which Donald Trump's constant

interruptions may have cost him support in subsequent opinion polls, the

president has very visibly dialled down the volume - and it made him a much more

effective debater.



This time, the content of what the candidates are saying might be what the

American public remembers from the debate - not the chaotic manner in which it

was delivered.



Once again, Biden largely held up under fire - avoiding the kind of gaffes and

stumbles that could have played into Republican attempts to question his age and

mental acuity.



The Trump campaign will try to make an issue out of Biden's call for a

"transition" from oil-based energy - a risky thing to throw in at the tail end

of the debate. In an era of hybrid cars and energy-efficient homes, however,

when even petroleum companies employ similar language, it may not hit Americans

as hard as Republicans imagine.



In the end, the raucous first debate probably will be what the history books

remember. And with polls showing most Americans already having made up their

minds - and more than 45 million already having voted - the chance that this

evening has a lasting impact on the race seems slim.



Covid takes center stage



The Trump campaign complained that this debate was supposed to be focused on

foreign policy - perhaps allowing the president to tout what he sees as his

accomplishments in the Middle East, trade and Syria and go after Biden on his

son's business ties to China.



Instead, the debate, like earlier debates, started on the coronavirus pandemic -

a topic polls show the American public care most about.



Donald Trump, once again touted a vaccine he said would be ready "in weeks". He

offered personal testimony to the power of the new drugs to treat the disease

and boasted that he was now "immune".



Biden, not surprisingly, went on the attack. He pointed out Trump had repeatedly

promised the disease would disappear on its own. He said there were 220,000

Americans dead and there could be another 200,000 by the end of the year. media

captionPresidential debate: Trump and Biden clash on Covid response



In the back and forth between the two candidates, Trump continued to offer hope

that things were getting better and businesses and schools should reopen. And

when Trump said that people were "learning to live" with the disease, Biden

pounced.



"People are learning to live with it?" he asked. "People are learning to die

with it."



At one point, Trump offered an answer that he said was "perhaps just to finish

this". The president, clearly, was eager move on to different subjects. The

inevitable Hunter Biden exchange



Trump telegraphed early and often that he would make Biden's son Hunter a topic

of the debate, and it wasn't long before the president brought up the former

vice-president's family. He alleged that Biden personally profited from his

son's business dealings in Ukraine and China, citing recent news stories based

on information allegedly gleaned from Hunter Biden's laptop computer.



Biden's defence was a blanket denial, followed by changing the subject to

Trump's taxes and business ties to China. That forced the president to spend

time explaining about how he really "pre-paid" millions of dollars in taxes and

again saying he'd someday release his tax returns. The exchange, which would

require paragraphs to explain in any sufficient detail, probably left the casual

American view confused.



Trump was counting on drawing blood with his attacks on Biden's family, making

this into a controversy that finally pulls his front-running opponent back to

earth. Chances are this night won't do that.



An argument over immigration



Four years ago, Trump rode a hard line on immigration to the Republican

nomination and, ultimately, the White House. When the topic came up in Thursday

night's debate, however, he tried to downplay some of the more extreme steps

he's taken while in office. media captionPresidential debate: Trump says catch

and release only works on those with 'lowest IQs'



When asked about his administration's policy of separating the children from the

parents of undocumented migrants, for instance, Trump tried to turn the

conversation to the detention facilities - "cages," in Trump's term - created by

the Obama administration to house unaccompanied minor immigrants.



Biden, flashing indignation, noted that the children Trump was detaining came

over with their parents and that the policy was making the US a "laughing

stock". For many American voters, the audio of separated children crying for

their parents may still be relatively fresh in their minds.



Trump's response, that those children were "so well taken care of," in

"facilities that are so clean" probably didn't help his cause.



Trump finds his footing on criminal justice



In the first presidential debate, Trump talked himself into trouble when the

topic turned to race relations, as he danced around whether to directly condemn

white supremacist groups. This time around, the president was considerably more

nimble.



He boasted about his bipartisan criminal justice reform and funding for

historically black colleges. He attacked Biden for his sponsorship of a

draconian crime bill in the 1990s that led to a sharp rise in the number of

black Americans in prisons. And, perhaps most potently, when Biden began talking

about his proposals for reform, he questioned why the former vice-president

didn't accomplish more when he served with President Barack Obama.



"It's all talk but no action with these politicians," Trump said. "Why didn't

you get it done? You had eight years to get it done."



Anyone who lived through the "tough on crime" 1990s in the US would probably be

shocked by this debate exchange, where both candidates talked about the number

of felons to whom they gave clemency and their efforts at reducing the number of

incarcerated Americans. As the mass demonstrations against institutional racism

demonstrated earlier this year, the times have indeed changed.