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New Day
Trump and Biden Clash in Final Presidential Debate. Aired 5- 5:30a ET
Aired October 23, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're rounding the corner, it's going away.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He says we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks at home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump had said 38 times that it was going away. It was wrong eight months ago and it's wrong today. We're now back above 60,000 confirmed cases per day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both of them were better than they were last time, but I thought that Joe Biden held his own and that's all he had to do.
BIDEN: Kids were ripped from their arms and separated. They can't find over 500 sets of those parents. It's criminal.
TRUMP: They are so well taken care of. They are it in facilities that were so clean. .
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY this Friday, October 23rd, 5:00 here for a special early edition of NEW DAY.
The final presidential debate was both more substantive and restrained.
President Trump toned it down and tried to portray himself as an outsider, despite being in the White House for four years. He offered little in the way of concrete plans for a second term.
Joe Biden challenged the president on his record and tried to deliver a message of unity and empathy.
The coronavirus pandemic dominated the debate, with the candidates presenting starkly different visions on everything from the economy and health care to climate change.
Eleven days before the election --
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It choked you up, the whole thing.
CAMEROTA: I'm very choked up, believe m. This will be a multi-hanky show.
It's only 11 days until Election Day and the number of early votes has now surpassed the total number of early votes in 2016.
BERMAN: So our post debate poll was pretty clear about who viewers thought won the debate. Joe Biden by 14 points.
So, yeah, second debate Donald Trump might have bested first debate Donald Trump, but not according to the poll of who he's actually running against. As for the substance with the coronavirus pandemic, clearly now in its dangerous new wave, the president again issued the false claim that we're rounding the corner.
Vice President Biden warned that a dark winter is coming. Overnight, more than 71,000 new cases were reported. That's the highest number since the summer and the fourth worst day since the pandemic began. More than 41,000 people are now hospitalized. That's the most in two months. Eight states are reporting record hospitalizations. And deaths are now increasing in more than half the country.
Let's go to Nashville, the site of the final debate.
Jessica, the last time one way or another that Donald Trump will ever debate. So, historic in its own right.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, John, look, it's 11 days -- you guys said it -- to Election Day. So, we're here in the very final stretch. Both candidates making their final pitch to voters, and while it was lighter on the interruptions this time, it was certainly not light on jabs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN (voice-over): In the second and final presidential debate, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden clashed over the major issues.
With fewer interruptions, the two candidates offered their final pitches to voters, including how they will combat coronavirus on a day that saw one of the highest numbers of new U.S. cases since the crisis began.
[05:00:10]
Still, the president repeated lies about the pandemic.
TRUMP: It will go away. As I say, we're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. It's going away.
BIDEN: Two hundred and 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 is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.
DEAN: Trump also used his own recent coronavirus diagnosis to down play the severity of the disease.
TRUMP: I was in for a short period of time, and I got better very fast.
BIDEN: He had nothing -- he did virtually nothing. And then he gets out of the hospital and he talks about don't worry. It's all going to be over soon. Come on. There's not another serious scientist in the world who thinks it's going to be over soon.
KRISTEN WELKER, DEBATE MODERATOR: President Trump, your reaction?
TRUMP: I didn't 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.
DEAN: Biden condemning the Trump administration's coronavirus response and looked straight to camera, speaking to directly to voters impacted by the pandemic.
BIDEN: You folks at home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife going to bed tonight and 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.
DEAN: The president continued to paint himself as a Washington outsider. And Biden as a career politician. While the Democratic nominee aimed to depict Trump as a failed first-term president.
BIDEN: Look, this isn't about -- the reason -- there's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey there's 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.
WELKER: Ten seconds.
TRUMP: That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing and then he looks, the family, around the table, everything, just the typical politician when I see that --
WELKER: Let's talk about North Korea.
TRUMP: I'm not a typical politician. That's why I got elected.
DEAN: Trump criticized Biden's stance on fossil fuels in a move aimed to hurt the former vice president in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
BIDEN: I would transition from the oil industry, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Transition.
(CROSSTALK)
BIDEN: That is a big statement.
Because the oil industry pollutes significantly.
TRUMP: Oh, I see.
BIDEN: And here's the deal --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: But that's a big statement.
BIDEN: Well, if you'd 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.
DEAN: On immigration, Biden called out the president on the 545 migrant children who have been separated from their parents.
BIDEN: What happened? Parents were ripped -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they can not find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It's criminal.
BIDEN: They are so well taken care of they're in facilities that are so clean.
WELKER: But some of them haven't been reunited with their families.
TRUMP: But just ask -- one question, who built the cages?
DEAN: And when pressed on his record on race, Trump made this claim.
TRUMP: I am the least racist person. I can't even see the audience because it's so dark. But I don't care who is in the audience. I'm the least racist person in this room.
BIDEN: Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most recent presidents we've had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire, every single one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN: We have the debates behind us now, now it's back to the campaign trail.
President Trump heads to Florida today for a pair of rallies.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Delaware. He's going to give remarks on the coronavirus pandemic and his plan to get the country out of it.
Meantime, Biden's top surrogate, President Obama, heads to Florida tomorrow, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Jessica, thank you very much for all of that.
Joining us now to talk about it, we have CNN political commentator Errol Louis. He's the political anchor at Spectrum News.
CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.
Also with us, CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She's the politics and White House editor for "Axios".
John Avlon --
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- your thoughts, your takeaways, what did you learn last night, who won?
AVLON: Well, I thought it was a clearly more substantive debate than the first one, but it didn't detract from the volume of lies we heard. And I think a lot of folks are grading on a curve.
Look, you know, Biden actually I think was stronger than the first debate in terms of substance, in terms of delivery. So was Trump. But, I think, again, he's being judged against his first debate which is one of the great disasters in presidential debate history.
[05:05:02]
And simply because he didn't light himself on fire doesn't make it a successful debate as much as it makes a successful debate compared to the first one.
BERMAN: Yeah, I agree. Whether or not second debate Trump beats first debate Trump is irrelevant.
AVLON: Yes.
BERMAN: It's whether second debate Trump beats second debate Biden. And in a way, that is enough to change the trajectory of the race with 11 days to go. We have this poll which seems to indicate the answer to that is no.
Errol, what did you see. Who got more out of this?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what I saw was a president who turned in a much better debate performance but also just kind of riffed through a lot of his talking points. This was really kind of one of his rallies. He just sort of did it in slow motion, hitting all kinds of points, many of which were very sort of obscure, that if you're not following politics everyday, you wouldn't necessarily know what he was talking about with this laptop and all these accusations about Joe Biden's son or how this all fits into a world where we have mass unemployment, mass hunger, the coronavirus itself.
And so he seemed to be talking to an entirely different group than the voters who are in front of him. This is the whole country. This is for everybody.
I thought in the closing minutes of it when asked, a real sort of slow pitch right over the fat middle of the plate, Joe Biden knocks it out of the park. You know, let's go with science over fiction, hope over fear, and Trump went into some other kind of place where, again, he likes to hit these partisan points, which really gets his base excited.
But if that's all he's doing, getting his base excited he is not making the best use of incredible forum which is what that debate was last night, John.
CAMEROTA: Margaret, what did you see?
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, to me the fact that this centrally worked because of the threat of a mute button kind of tells you everything we need to know about the moment we're at. I think that had a tremendous amount to do with the fact that this debate stayed on the rails.
What I look to is what President Trump's own team put out after the debate, what do they think were their moments of strength. It was the economy. It was Joe Biden's comments on oil, which I think on the flip side could actually motivate turnout of younger voters and more progressive voters. It was the attempt to tie Vice President Biden to some of his son's problems or questionable issues. And it was targeting black American men.
But these are all around the edges that have to do with turnout in the final days. The Trump campaign didn't put out anything about health care or anything about the coronavirus in terms of points that they really seem to think they won on. These are the first two major topics of the debate and they're the moments that Biden's strength played to and they're also the moments that most Americans care the most about right now.
BERMAN: That's a really interesting point. I want to play one piece of sound, Errol, I know you think is really important and encapsulate I think Margaret and all of you have been talking about which is some of the discussion driven by the president is about some of these ancillary issues where on things that matter to the American people, well, they may have seen something different.
Watch this. This is S5, guys.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning deciding, well we can't get new tires, they're bald, 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 Scranton and Claymont.
WELKER: Ten seconds.
TRUMP: That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing and then he looks, the family, around the table, everything, just the typical politician when I see that --
WELKER: Let's talk about North Korea.
TRUMP: I'm not a typical politician. That's why I got elected.
WELKER: OK. Let's talk about --
TRUMP: That was -- let's get off the subject of China and let's talk around sitting around the table. Come on Joe, you can do better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Errol, what did you see there? Why did you think that was so important?
LOUIS: My jaw dropped actually. I think that was one of the great gaffes of modern debating. I mean, you -- yes, it's a little folksy, it's a little bit corny, but there's a reason that politicians look into the camera. There's a reason that they tick off things that real families are going through like being able to pay for community college or change the tires on your car. That's real.
I mean, at a time when we've had mass unemployment and people really dealing with real things, to just kind of scoff at it the way the president did just showed that you're completely out of touch. You know, there's always this poll question that goes out and it has increased meaning as we get closer to election day which is do you think the candidate cares about people like me?
AVLON: Yeah.
LOUIS: And by that standard, he just threw it away. It's not that he failed. He just sort of scorned the very idea of trying to appeal to the real world of people making hard decisions in their own lives.
CAMEROTA: I mean, folksy and corny are who Joe Biden's middle name, John. That's what -- that's -- people have believed that's authentic.
AVLON: I thought that was malarkey.
CAMEROTA: I forgot all that. That's who he is.
About what President Trump -- what we heard President Trump was going to do which is go after Joe Biden's son with this, whatever you call it, whatever is going on, on that side with Rudy Giuliani and the laptop, he didn't seem to be able to articulate it last night?
[05:10:11]
AVLON: Well, I think in part that's because it's sort of a crazy quilt at this point, which has all the hallmarks of Russia disinformation. That said, it wasn't for lack of trying.
And, you know, what he would do strategically, Margaret did a great point, he was restrained by the mute button at the front. It didn't result in Joe Biden hurting himself but focused it. But once that mute button window was over take his 30 second response and immediately try to pivot to an attack.
But to Errol's point, it was an attack only totally clear to people who are deep in the ecosystem echo chamber. But he kept hitting it and hitting it. And Biden, frankly, did take the bait once or twice. It got under his skin with a degree of frustration.
BERMAN: He also turned around and he was the one who bring up the president's taxes and drew blood that may not have happened otherwise.
Margaret, the pandemic is clearly the issue that overshadowed this entire debate. We have 71,000 new cases reported yesterday. We're 41,000 new hospitalizations which is a level we haven't been at in two months.
So in so far that is the issue facing the American people right now, how do you think each candidate addressed that in the way they addressed it how did it play out?
TALEV: I actually thought that the way that they each addressed does truly reflect their positions, the positions on which they have been running for several months. President Trumps is to say, look the economy is completely bound to this and we have to drive through it, deal with the casualties and try to keep the economy on track or things will be worse. Biden's argument is you can't keep the economy on track until you contain the virus. So, those are the two fundamental closing arguments of both men. The details matter, of course, and the facts matter and everyone was fact checking this until 3:00 a.m. in the morning.
But fundamentally those are the two arguments. They play to each candidate's bases in some of the battleground states where the economic pain has been felt most acutely and where there's the greatest proportion of non-college educated white men whose votes have the biggest potential to pivot, President Trump's argument may play stronger.
But nonetheless, this is a dividing line for women, for seniors, and I was really glad to see the debate truly reflect so you know what you're getting in terms of these votes, the arguments that both men are making.
CAMEROTA: OK. Panel, stick around. We have many more questions for you we have to deal with race and immigration and climate. So stick around.
NEW DAY will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:16:59] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: What happened? Parents were ripped -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they can not find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It's criminal. It's criminal.
TRUMP: They used to say I built the cages, and then they had a 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. Back with us, Errol Louis, John Avlon, Margaret Talev.
Errol, that was an interesting moment. The issue, 545 children who were separated from their parents because of the Trump administration policy. Their parents haven't been located, and this is years now after it happened. And you saw the exchange there of how each candidate is approaching that really tragedy at this point.
The president also said, oh, they're in great conditions, great conditions which frankly isn't true. We don't know how the conditions are at this point they're being held in right now.
But again I asked you how did that moment play, Errol?
LOUIS: Look, it's shocking. All of us here are parents. So we know this is an unfathomable horror the idea that your child, your young child in many cases, is simply gone. You don't know where they are. You don't know what conditions they're under. It also goes to a core question of competence.
You know, Joe Biden has really pushed Donald Trump and the administration over their response to the coronavirus pandemic, but this was, you know, whatever side of the immigration issue you're on, this was a case where absolutely, absolutely unacceptable. You know, again, unthinkable, really kind of basic blocking and tackling.
If you want to implement this policy as controversial and potentially cruel as it might be, you got to get it right. And for the president to acknowledge that, yeah, they have no idea, there was no plan on how to get it undone, and he just kind of left it hanging out there. There again, points to Joe Biden who already is leading in the polls, and another missed opportunity for the president.
CAMEROTA: Margaret, let's talk about racism. I know you flagged this moment as being illuminating. So let's watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: With the exception of Abraham Lincoln -- possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done. BIDEN: Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we
had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire, every single one. Started off his campaign coming down the escalator saying he's going to 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Margaret, what did you hear?
TALEV: I heard President Trump not messaging to all voters of color. I heard President Trump messaging to a relatively small but potentially important share of black American men voters.
[05:20:06]
And what he's doing is he knows that Joe Biden feels vulnerable or defensive to some extent for his role in the '94 crime bill. Biden trying to turn that around and say, hey, if you want to talk 1990s with me in terms of reviews on racial justice, that's fine.
But there's fundamentally this split throughout the course of the campaign on whether systemic racism exists, whether structural racism is real, Biden trying to push back on that front. And I think, you know, we have to wait until the election to understand whether what we've seen in polling where President Trump actually has gained some ground with black men in terms of support makes a difference or not.
But Biden trying to turn that around and drill very strongly into the actual record of the Republican Party versus Democratic Party and Donald Trump versus Biden.
BERMAN: So, John, if there's one thing that Republicans are seizing on and you heard the president do it at the end of the debate, the Trump campaign did it immediately after the debate and it's been going on all night long and I guarantee we'll hear about it all morning long is Joe Biden's answer on fracking and also his answer on the future of the oil and gas industry.
AVLON: Yeah.
BERMAN: So, let's play a little more of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I would transition from the oil industry, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Transition.
(CROSSTALK)
BIDEN: That is a big statement because I would stop --
WELKER: Why would you do that?
BIDEN: Because the oil industry pollutes significantly.
TRUMP: I see.
BIDEN: And here's the deal --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: But that's a big statement.
BIDEN: Well, if you'd 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So, the Trump campaign is leaning into this, John, as a big gotcha moment.
AVLON: Sure.
BERMAN: Also the issue of fracking where Joe Biden says he would not ban fracking in Pennsylvania. Again, the Trump campaign leaning -- I may want to note one thing that people may not be aware of, fracking is actually under water in Pennsylvania, the state where it might be the politically most loaded.
A majority of voters, I think it's 52 to 48 actually oppose fracking.
So, the idea of all of this being a clear political slam dunk is a little more murky, nevertheless, this is something that I think Republicans are seizing on this moment.
AVLON: Yeah. And, I think particularly Biden's comments about the oil industry. But let's just put this all in context. First of all, he is not in favor of banning fracking except on federal lands. He has been fairly consistent about that as a matter of policy.
But on tape, at CNN talking to our Dana Bash, he has been inarticulate and confused about it. And that's a real issue but not a substantive issue, just a stylistic one.
Second thing, he basically took Trump's bait here. The first half of the sound bite we didn't hear was Trump saying would you get rid of the oil industry. And, all of a sudden, Biden says, yes, I would, I would transition it out.
He has been calling for carbon neutral economy by 2050 forever. It's been part of his core plans. But the way it was phrased last night can which have an effect. The Trump team sees an opening particularly that Texas is uncomfortably close, just ask John Cornyn, who's trying to create some distance from himself from Donald, and obviously, Pennsylvania to your point it's underwater. But that's why that was I think as close to a significant policy
misstep that could translate to votes 11 days out as we saw last night.
CAMEROTA: In terms of the substance, just because John -- I mean, the style, just because John just touched on it, Errol, I thought it was really interesting because there was that non-interruption rule, I felt the candidates really let their faces do the talking.
President Trump's facial expressions spoke a lot. And Joe Biden's laugh, you know, smiles, putting his head down, I thought that all of that was just interesting to watch.
LOUIS: Yeah, absolutely. The president, you know, reiterated a lot of scorn, contempt. He was very much in a fight. You know, you could see this steely gaze. He would pounce when he thought he had one. He was very much in the middle of combat.
And just as you say, Joe Biden would look down and chuckle a little bit. I was waiting for him to say "there you go again". There's nothing you can do after a certain point. When you've got a whole world of difference, philosophical difference, policy point differences, factual differences with the president, you've always got to decide which of the many things aren't true, you're going to sort of pick on and really try to drive to ground.
So Joe Biden tried to sort of present a different sort of style and, of course, he has that really effective method of looking right in the camera and talking past the debate hall to the people at home, who are -- which is sort of the whole point. That's an experienced debater.
AVLON: Yeah. But you know, Errol, you and Alisyn seized on something, listen with the sound off, worthwhile doing sometimes, I think you would have gotten a lot of contempt from Donald Trump and look at what Biden basically sailed as a way to deal with Trump, it was the smile and the nod.
[05:25:10]
It was the looking away. And it's kind of the way you handle a malevolent child or someone who's had too much to drink and gets belligerent. You take your ego out of it, and you sort of say, that person is over there. I'm not going to engage, and I thought it would actually stylistically pretty significant as a tactic to deal with someone like Donald Trump.
BERMAN: Alisyn only listens to me with the sound off. She blocks out everything I say always.
CAMEROTA: It's great. I mean, you're great with the sound off.
BERMAN: So, Margaret, the question is what now, right? So that was it. That was it. That was the last time we see the candidates on stage. That was the last big set piece of this campaign. There are 11 days left. Already more people have voted early than voted four years ago. So, what are we going to see for the next 11 days?
TALEV: We're going to see a lot of Florida and Pennsylvania and a lot of conversation about the coronavirus and health care. These are going to be the two men's closing arguments. I mean, look, I think we should be prepared, depending on how close this really is for anything, for more oppo research dumps and the like. But fundamentally, now the contours are set. The closing arguments are about whether you fix the coronavirus and then the economy or the economy and let the coronavirus sort of play out. And it's all about turnout.
And what we're going to hear are messages targeted to crucial blocks of turnout in crucial swing states, Pennsylvania and Florida leading that pack unless those numbers in Georgia and Texas move enough that they become part of the final drive.
BERMAN: Margaret, John, Errol, thank you one and all for being with us this morning for this extra special and, yes, extra early edition of NEW DAY.
So the fall surge of the coronavirus, it is getting worse. We have these new numbers from overnight to show how bad it is. We'll give you the latest information next.
