Candidates will face off for the final time. You are looking at live pictures from the debate hall at can the bell in nashville, tennessee. Were seeing records broken already. Nearly 50 million americans have voted, and thats more ballots cast before election day in 2016. A rot of people. This is presidenPresident Trumpt opportunity to go face to face with a former Vice President. As you remember, their second debate was canceled when mr. Trump balked at a virtual format after he tested positive for covid19. Now, each candidate held an individual town hall one week ago. Both were tame affairs, compared to that first meeting, which you can describe as an overthetop slugfest, marred by insults and interruptions that left many wishing the organizers could simply just cut the microphones. So tonight, while one candidate is answering a direct question for two minutes, the other candidates microphone will be muted. The moderator, nbcs Kristen Welker, has chosen six topics fighting covid19, American Families, race in america, Climate Change, National Security, and leadership. Leading up to this debate, biden prepared while he stayed in delaware. The president held his debate prep in the spaces between multiple Campaign Rallies this week. Odonnell theres so much at stake. We want to bring in nikole killion. She is inside the debate hall in nashville. Good evening, nikole. Reporter good evening, norah. The Biden Campaign says the former Vice President will use tonight as another opportunity to speak directly to the American People and lay out his agenda. They view this debate as a test of prsidential temperament and say biden is prepared for whatever comes his way. They do expect the president will go after biden and his son hunter, but they think thats going to backfire. Biden told reporters today he hopes the president plays by the rules. Norah. Odonnell all right, lets bring in cbs paula reid, because she covers the white house and President Trump. Paula. Reporter good evening, norah. President trump heads into tonights debate with little formal preparation. He said this week, though, that he insists that he gets plenty of practice by fielding questions from reporters nearly every day. Now, Senior Campaign official says the president will try to focus, least some of tonights discussion, on bidens son hunter, but many of his other advisers are encouraging the president to let his opponent speak more than he did last time in the hope that biden will make some mistakes. Norah. Odonnell all right, paula reid. We are just moments away. And, John Dickerson, can anything that happens tonight change the trajectory of this race . Well, its the last moment of the race that is guaranteed to have a huge viewership. If it can, tonight is the night. Welcome you to the final 2020 president ial debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President joe biden. applause . Welker 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 im going to ask you to please keep 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 are ready, lets 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 40,000 americans are in the hospital tonight with covid, including record numbers here in tennessee. And since the two of you last shared a stage, 16,000 americans have died from covid. S please be specific. How would you lead the country during this next stage of the coronavirus crisis. Two minutes uninterrupted. So as you know, 2. 2 Million People, modeled out were expected to die. We closed up the greatest economy in the world in order to fight this horrible disease that came from china. It is a worldwide pandemic. Its all over the world. You see the spikes in europe and many other places right now. If you noticed, the mortality rate is down 85 . The excess mortality rate is way down and much lower than almost any other country. And were fighting it and were fighting it hard. There is a spike. There was a spike in florida, and its now gone. There was a very big spike in texas, its now gone. There was a very big spike in arizona, its now gone. And there were some spikes and surges in other places. They will soon be gone. We have a vaccine thats coming. Its ready. Its going to be announced within weeks. And its going to be delivered. We have operation warp speed which is the, 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 i had something that they gave me, a therapeutic, i guess they would call it, some people would say it was a cure but i was in for a short period of time and i got better very fast or i wouldnt be here tonight. And now they say im immune, whether in four months or a lifetime, nobody has been able to say that, but im immune. More and more people are getting better. We have a problem that is a worldwide problem. This is a worldwide problem. But i have been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we have been able to do with the, if you take a look at what we have done in terms of goggles and masks and gowns and everything else, and in particular ventilators. We are 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, were rounding the turn, were rounding the corner. Its going away. Welker okay, former Vice President biden, to you, how would you lead the country out of this crisis, you have two minutes uninterrupted. 220,000 americans dead. If you hear nothing else i say tonight to this, anyone who is responsible for not taking control, in fact, not saying, i take no responsibility i snishally. Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of america. Were in a situation where there are thousand a thousand deaths a day now. A thousand deaths a day. And there are over 70,000 new cases per day. Compared to what is going on in europe as the new england medical journal said, theyre starting from a very low rate. Were starting from a very high rate. The expectation is well have another 200,000 americans dead between now and the end of the year. We just wore these masks, the president s own advisor told him, we could save 100,000 lives. And were in a circumstances where the president thus far still has no plan. No exensive 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 of 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. Were in a situation now where the new england medical journal, one of the most serious journals in the whole world said for the First Time Ever that 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. Welker President Trump, i would like to followup with you and your comments. You talked about taking a therapeutic. I assume you are referencing regeneron, you also said a vaccine will be coming within weeks. Yes. Welker is that a guarantee. No, it is not a guarantee, but it will be by the end of the year, but i think it has a good chance, two companies i think within a matter of weeks and it will be drubted very quickly. Welker you can tell which john. Johnson johnson, modern is doing well, pfizer is doing very well, and we have numerous others. Then we also have others that we are working on very closely with other countries in particular, europe. Welker let me followup 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, for the earliest for enough americans to get vaccinated and even then they say the country will be Wearing Masks and does tansing into 2022, is your time line realistic. I think my time line will be more accurate, i dont know that they are counting on the military the way i do. We have our generals lined up, one in particular that is the head of logistics. And this is a very easy distribution for him, he is ready to go as soon as we have the vaccine, we expect to have a hundred million viels. As soon as we have the vaccine, hes ready to go. Welker Vice President biden, your reaction, and just 40 of americans say they would definitely agree to take the 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. Make sure it is totally transparent. Have the science, well 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. This is the same fella who told you that dont worry, were going to end this by the summer. We are about to go into a dark winter. A dark winter. And he has no clear plan and theres no prospect that there is going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American People before the middle of next year. Welker President Trump, your reaction, he says you have in plan. I dont think we will have a dark winter at all. We are opening up our country, we have learned and studied and understand the disease which we didnt 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. You now he is saying oh, i should have, you know, moved quick are. But he didnt 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, 700,000 would be dead right now. But it is a far less leltal 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 didnt 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 is what we have done. We have done all of it. But he was way behind us. Welker Vice President biden, your response. 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 44 people that were in there, in china trying to get to wuhan to determine what exactly the source was. What did the president say in january. He said no, he said this is he was being transparent. The president of cheuna is blg transparent, we owe him a debt of gratitude. 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 has nothing he did virtually, nothing, and then he gets out of the hospital and he talks about this is, dont worry. Its all going to be over soon. Come on theres not another serious scientist in the world who thinks it is going to be over soon. Welker President Trump. I didnt say over soon, i said we are learning to live it with it, we cant lock ourselves up in a basement like joe does. He has the ability to lock himself up. I dont know, he has obviously made a lot of money some place. But he has this thing about living in a basement. People cant do that. By the way, i as the president couldnt do that. I would 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 cant do that. And kristen, every meeting i have, and i 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, would be horrible to have cancelled 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 cant close up our nation. We have to open our schools and we cant close up our nation, or youre not going to have a nation. Welker an of course the cdc has said young people can get sick with covid19 and can pass it. Vice President Biden, i want to talk broadly about strategy. May i respond to that. Welker 30 seconds. Number one, he says that were learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks home will have an emptchair at the kich be table this morning, that man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try and touch thawr, out of habit where their wife or husband was is gone. Learning to live with it, come on. Were dying with it. Because he has never said, he never said it is dangerous. When is the last time, is it really dangerous still . You tell the people its dang rao dng rouse now, what should we do about the dangerment and you say i take no responsibility. Welker let me talk about. Excuse me, i take full resonsibility. Its a not my fault that it came here. Its chinas fault. And you know what, its not joes fault that it came here either. Its chinas fault. They kept it from going into the rest of china for the most part but they didnt keep it from coming out to the world including europe and ourselves. Welker Vice President biden. The fact is that when we knew it was coming, when it hit, what happened . What did the president say . He said dont worry. Its going to go away. Be gone by easter. Dont worry. The warm weather, dont worry, maybe inject bleach, he said he was kidding when he said that, but 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. Were about to lose 200,000 more people. Welker President Trump. Look, perhaps just to finish this, i was kidding on that, but just to funnish this, when i closed, he said i shouldnt have closed. And that went on for months. Nancy pelosi said the same thing. She was dancing on the streets in chinatown and san francisco. But when i closed, he said this is a terrible thing, you are xenophobe you can. I think he called me racist, even, because i was closing it to china. Now he says i should have closed it earlier. Joe, it doesnt work. I didnt say oort either of those things. You certainly did. I talked about xenophobia in a different context it wasnt about closing the border to chinese coming to the United States. Welker all right, want to talk about both of your different strategies. He thought i shouldnt have closed the border. That is obvious. Welker do you want to respond to that quickly, Vice President biden. No. Welker lets talk about your different strategies toward dealing with this. Mr. Vice president you suggested you would support new shut downs if scientists recommended it. What do you say to americans who are fearful the cost of shutdowns, the impact on the economy, the higher risk of hunger, depression, domestic and Substance Abuse outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus. What i would say is i will shut down the virus, not the country it is his inep teud that caused the country to have to shut down in large part, why businesses have gone under, why schools are closed, why so man people have lost their living, and why they are concerned. Those other concerns are real. That is why he should have been instead of in a sand trp in his golf course he should have been nshting with nancy pelosi and the democrats and republicans about what to do about the acts they were passing for billions of dollars to mawk sure people had the capacity. Welker you havent ruled out more shutdowns . Well, no, im not shutting down today but look, we need standards. The standard is if you have a reproduction rate in a community that is 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 open. They need to deal with ventilation systems, they need to deal with smaller classes, more teachers, more pods. He refused to support that money, or at least up to now. Welker lets talk about schools. I think we have to respond, do you mind. Welker mees please and i have i a followup. Thank you, i appreciate that. All he does st talk about shutdowns. But forget about him. His democrat governors cuomo in new york, you look at what is going on in california, you look at pennsylvania, north carolina, democrats, democrats all, they are shut down so tight and theyre dying. Theyre dying. And he supports all these people. All he talks about