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WATCH LIVE: Trump and Biden face off for final presidential debate in Nashville Biden calls Rudy Giuliani ‘Russian pawn’ as he & Trump accuse each other of taking over foreign money in debate
(32 minutes later)
US President Donald Trump is taking on his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in Nashville in the pair’s last debate before next month’s election. It’s only their second time sharing the stage in a hotly contested race. Democratic hopeful Joe Biden has charged that Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, is working as a “Russian pawn” to help his client win the 2020 race, as both candidates accuse each other of taking foreign cash.
Thursday night’s debate, which was initially supposed to focus on foreign policy, will center instead on Covid-19, American families, racial issues, climate change, national security, and “leadership.”
The first presidential debate, held last month, was widely panned for Trump’s aggression, Biden’s exasperated reliance on prepared statements, and the moderator’s inability to force either candidate to adhere to prescribed time limits. This time, the moderator will be equipped with a mute button, which Trump has denounced as “very unfair,” but which his campaign apparently agreed to. The mute button is not supposed to be used beyond the 2-minute opening statements by Biden and Trump, however. “[Trump’s] own national security advisor told him that what is happening with his buddy – oh, I shouldn’t… 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,” he said on the debate stage, referring to a New York Post report alleging his son Hunter pursued shady deals overseas with his father’s knowledge.
A planned second debate was canceled following Trump’s diagnosis with Covid-19. With the president thus infected, the Commission on Presidential Debates insisted on a virtual debate, which Trump refused. Both candidates ended up holding rival town hall events instead. The president, in turn, accused Biden and his family of “raking in”“a lot of money” from foreign entities, including in Russia, Ukraine and China, pointing to Hunter’s position on the board of a Ukrainian gas firm, Burisma, during his father’s tenure as vice president under the Barack Obama administration. 
Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, squared off against Democratic challenger Kamala Harris earlier this month for the only vice presidential debate on the schedule. A comparatively subdued affair after the presidential slugfest, it nonetheless saw both candidates talking over each other and a moderator seemingly unwilling to rein in their excesses. “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,” Trump said. “I think you owe an explanation to the American people.”
Polls show Biden leading Trump in most states, though the run-up to the 2016 election showed a similar spread, only to deliver Trump his victory – in the Electoral College, at least – over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Unlike 2016, however, 2020’s election has included a dramatic expansion of early and mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has made many Americans wary of venturing out to polling places to physically cast their vote. Trump has extensively condemned mail-in voting, claiming it is fraught with fraud. Biden shot back that he had “not taken a penny from any foreign source in my life,” adding “My son has not made money… [from] China. The only guy who made money from China is this guy.”
  The Democrat nominee also spoke on supposed “election-meddling” campaigns waged from abroad, insisting Trump is Moscow’s Manchurian candidate and vowing that “any country that interferes in American elections will pay a price.”
Trump responded that “there has been nobody tougher on Russia” than himself, citing countless layers of sanctions slapped on the country under his presidency, while also arguing that his national security advisor, Robert O’Brien, informed him that both Moscow and Tehran were hoping he loses the election, contrary to the claims of Biden and other Democrats.
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