The Louisiana National Guard was called in to stop a series of cyberattacks aimed at small government offices across the state in recent weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the events, highlighting the cyber threat facing local governments in the run up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The situation in Louisiana follows a similar case in Washington state, according to a cybersecurity consultant familiar with the matter, where hackers infected some government offices with a type of malware known for deploying ransomware, which locks up systems and demands payment to regain access.

Senior U.S. security officials have warned&nbsp;since at least 2019 that ransomware poses a risk to the U.S. election, namely that an attack against certain state government offices around the election could disrupt systems needed to administer aspects of the vote.

It is unclear if the hackers sought to target systems tied to the election in Louisiana or were simply hoping for a payday. Yet the attacks raised alarms because of the potential harm it could have led to and due to evidence suggesting a sophisticated hacking group was involved.

Experts investigating the Louisiana incidents found a tool used by the hackers that was previously linked to a group associated with the North Korean government, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

That tool was described to Reuters as a remote access trojan, or RAT, used to infiltrate computer networks. But cybersecurity analysts who have examined this RAT - known as “KimJongRat” - say some of its code had been publicized in a computer virus repository, where hackers could copy it; making attribution to North Korea less certain.

While staff at several government offices in northern Louisiana were successfully compromised as part of the campaign, according to the two people familiar with the incident response, the cyberattack was stopped in its early stages before significant harm was done.

The Louisiana National Guard declined to comment on the incidents. A spokesman for the Louisiana State Police said they were called in to investigate the cyberattacks, but declined further comment. The Governor`s office said they could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Tyler Brey, a spokesman for the Louisiana Secretary of State`s office, said Louisiana is a “top down state,” where election data is centrally stored at the secretary of state’s office, which can make it easier for election officials to recover from cyberattacks.

One person familiar with the events said they assessed the hacker’s objective was to infect computers with ransomware, but added that it was difficult to determine because the attack was stopped in its early phases.

If so, Louisiana wouldn`t be the first. Over the last year, several U.S. cities have been victimized by ransomware, including: incidents in Baltimore, Maryland, and Durham, North Carolina.

THE BIG QUESTION

Jen Miller Osborn, deputy director of threat intelligence for U.S. cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, tracked a hacking group last year that used KimJongRat. She said it would be “atypical” for the group she’s studied to conduct a cyber operation for financial gain.

A prior cybersecurity research report in 2013 by Luxembourg firm iTrust Consulting noted that KimJongRat was written with Korean computer code which carried references to the North Korean leader’s family members.

Emotet, an increasingly common trojan often used against banks, was also deployed by the attackers and found on computers in Louisiana. When staff were hacked, their email accounts would sometimes be co-opted by the hackers to send malware to other colleagues.

On October 6, the Homeland Security Department`s cybersecurity division, known as CISA, published an alert saying Emotet was being used to target numerous local government offices across the country.

In recent cases where cybercriminals have gone after local government offices as the election approaches, like in Washington, U.S. officials along with technology companies such as Microsoft Corp are racing to better understand if the hackers share connections with foreign intelligence agencies from Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.

“It`s a very interesting question and something we are digging into and trying to find data, information, and intelligence that would help us understand that better,” Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt said in a recent interview.

“There are a small number of criminal groups who are responsible for the majority of the ransomware attacks and so understanding who they are, how they’re organized, who they work with, where they are operating from, is something we’re working on," Burt added.

Microsoft is among a select group of cybersecurity companies helping respond to the attacks in Washington, where they`ve offered cybersecurity protection software for free to local government officials until the election, according to a person familiar with their response.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the company`s work there.

The Louisiana National Guard was called in to stop a series of cyberattacks aimed at small government offices across the state in recent weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the events, highlighting the cyber threat facing local governments in the run up to the 2020 U.

The Louisiana National Guard was called in to stop a series of cyberattacks aimed at small government offices across the state in recent weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the events, highlighting the cyber threat facing local governments in the run up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The situation in Louisiana follows a similar case in Washington state, according to a cybersecurity consultant familiar with the matter, where hackers infected some government offices with a type of malware known for deploying ransomware, which locks up systems and demands payment to regain access. Senior U.S. security officials have warned since at least 2019 that ransomware poses a risk to the U.S. election, namely that an attack against certain state government offices around the election could disrupt systems needed to administer aspects of the vote. It is unclear if the hackers sought to target systems tied to the election in Louisiana or were simply hoping for a payday. Yet the attacks raised alarms because of the potential harm it could have led to and due to evidence suggesting a sophisticated hacking group was involved. Experts investigating the Louisiana incidents found a tool used by the hackers that was previously linked to a group associated with the North Korean government, according to a person familiar with the investigation. That tool was described to Reuters as a remote access trojan, or RAT, used to infiltrate computer networks. But cybersecurity analysts who have examined this RAT - known as “KimJongRat” - say some of its code had been publicized in a computer virus repository, where hackers could copy it; making attribution to North Korea less certain. While staff at several government offices in northern Louisiana were successfully compromised as part of the campaign, according to the two people familiar with the incident response, the cyberattack was stopped in its early stages before significant harm was done. The Louisiana National Guard declined to comment on the incidents. A spokesman for the Louisiana State Police said they were called in to investigate the cyberattacks, but declined further comment. The Governor`s office said they could not comment on an ongoing investigation. Tyler Brey, a spokesman for the Louisiana Secretary of State`s office, said Louisiana is a “top down state,” where election data is centrally stored at the secretary of state’s office, which can make it easier for election officials to recover from cyberattacks. One person familiar with the events said they assessed the hacker’s objective was to infect computers with ransomware, but added that it was difficult to determine because the attack was stopped in its early phases. If so, Louisiana wouldn`t be the first. Over the last year, several U.S. cities have been victimized by ransomware, including: incidents in Baltimore, Maryland, and Durham, North Carolina. THE BIG QUESTION Jen Miller Osborn, deputy director of threat intelligence for U.S. cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, tracked a hacking group last year that used KimJongRat. She said it would be “atypical” for the group she’s studied to conduct a cyber operation for financial gain. A prior cybersecurity research report in 2013 by Luxembourg firm iTrust Consulting noted that KimJongRat was written with Korean computer code which carried references to the North Korean leader’s family members. Emotet, an increasingly common trojan often used against banks, was also deployed by the attackers and found on computers in Louisiana. When staff were hacked, their email accounts would sometimes be co-opted by the hackers to send malware to other colleagues. On October 6, the Homeland Security Department`s cybersecurity division, known as CISA, published an alert saying Emotet was being used to target numerous local government offices across the country. In recent cases where cybercriminals have gone after local government offices as the election approaches, like in Washington, U.S. officials along with technology companies such as Microsoft Corp are racing to better understand if the hackers share connections with foreign intelligence agencies from Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. “It`s a very interesting question and something we are digging into and trying to find data, information, and intelligence that would help us understand that better,” Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt said in a recent interview. “There are a small number of criminal groups who are responsible for the majority of the ransomware attacks and so understanding who they are, how they’re organized, who they work with, where they are operating from, is something we’re working on," Burt added. Microsoft is among a select group of cybersecurity companies helping respond to the attacks in Washington, where they`ve offered cybersecurity protection software for free to local government officials until the election, according to a person familiar with their response. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the company`s work there.

National Guard called in to thwart cyberattack in Louisiana weeks before election

Chinese President Xi Jinping in a threat to Washington said that China is not intimidated by America and it's ready to fight anyone creating trouble.

Your Story: China's veiled threat to Washington | "Chinese people not afraid of troubles'

More than 50 million Americans have voted early in the White House race pitting President Donald Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, a group monitoring balloting said Friday.

Voters are smashing records for casting ballots ahead of Election Day on November 3 in order to avoid crowded polling centers and long lines out of fear of catching the coronavirus.

The tally by the US Elections Project, run by the University of Florida, said more than 35 million people have now voted by mail and more than 15 million in person by leaving their ballots in designated drop boxes.

The tally already surpasses all 47 million votes cast early in the 2016 election, and there is still more than a week to go.

Early voting rules vary by state. One of the most populous, New York, gets started only on Saturday, so that will increase the tally even more.

Democrats are urging people to vote early as a precaution, and in some cases long lines have formed at places where voters can drop off their ballots.

Without providing evidence, Trump, who is trailing Biden in national polls and in key battleground states, has insisted that mail-in voting is prone to fraud.

More than 50 million Americans have voted early in the White House race pitting President Donald Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, a group monitoring balloting said Friday.

More than 50 million Americans have voted early in the White House race pitting President Donald Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, a group monitoring balloting said Friday. Voters are smashing records for casting ballots ahead of Election Day on November 3 in order to avoid crowded polling centers and long lines out of fear of catching the coronavirus. The tally by the US Elections Project, run by the University of Florida, said more than 35 million people have now voted by mail and more than 15 million in person by leaving their ballots in designated drop boxes. The tally already surpasses all 47 million votes cast early in the 2016 election, and there is still more than a week to go. Early voting rules vary by state. One of the most populous, New York, gets started only on Saturday, so that will increase the tally even more. Democrats are urging people to vote early as a precaution, and in some cases long lines have formed at places where voters can drop off their ballots. Without providing evidence, Trump, who is trailing Biden in national polls and in key battleground states, has insisted that mail-in voting is prone to fraud.

More than 50 million have voted early in US election: monitor

As Donald Trump and Joe Biden brace for the final Presidential Debate 2020, the president is unhappy with the newly added mute feature & the third debate moderator Kristen Welker. Who is Kristen Welker & why is the President angry before the final showdown? Susan Tehrani explains.

US Election 2020: Bracing for last verbal battle

In the western region of the key swing state Pennsylvania, a roadside farmhouse has been converted into a shrine for Donald Trump. the faithful GOP voters who call themselves the 'Trump Nation' visit & collect merchandise from the newly built Shrine. WION reports.

US Election 2020: 'Trump nation' in rural Pennsylvania

Infuriated by Barack Obama's triggering rally address, Donald Trump attacked his predecessor in his campaign in the state of North Carolina. Trump portrayed himself as a Lone Warrior against the Democrats. WION reports.

US Election 2020: Infuriated President attacks predecessor

The U.S. intelligence body obtains first concrete evidence of foreign interference in the #USElection2020 at a crucial pre-poll stage. John Ratcliffe & FBI director Christopher Wray announced that Iran & Russia are reportedly trying to influence the election result. WION reports.

US Election 2020: Iran & Russia meddling in U.S. Election

Barack Obama headlined a drive-in rally in Philadelphia for his mate Joe Biden. In a scathing rebuke backed by sarcasm, The former U.S. President ripped Donald Trump apart for a series old & new issues. WION reports.

US Election 2020: A scathing rebuke at President Trump

The United States has sanctioned five Iranian groups that it says attempted to interfere in the upcoming presidential election between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Watch report.

WION Dispatch: US punishes Iran for 'election interference'

A 19-year-old man with a van full of guns and explosives has been charged by feds for plotting the&nbsp;assassination of&nbsp;Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

It comes on the same day as the last presidential debate and with less than two weeks to go for the US election 2020 on November 3.

Alexander Hillel&nbsp;Treisman&nbsp;had posted a&nbsp;meme captioned "should I kill Joe Biden?"

The feds believe that it was not an idle threat as&nbsp;Treisman had conducted internet searches seeking information about Biden's home address, state gun laws, and night vision goggles.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/in-calmer-debate-biden-and-trump-offer-sharply-divergent-visions-for-nation-337432" hreflang="en">In calmer debate, Biden and Trump offer sharply divergent visions for nation</a>

He was arrested&nbsp;after a search of his abandoned white Ford van in Kannapolis, North Carolina revealed several weapons including an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle and a canister of explosive material.

The search also found&nbsp;books on bomb-making, $509,000 in US currency, and drawings of swastikas and planes crashing into buildings, according to the October 6 filing in the US District Court for the Middle District, North Carolina.

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The currency was believed to be&nbsp;Treisman's inheritance, officials said in the filing.&nbsp;

Following his arrest, the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his phone, computers, and other devices and found 1,248 videos and 6,721 images of child pornography content, according to federal prosecutors..

He also purchased an AR-15 in New Hampshire and traveled to a Wendy's fast-food restaurant within four miles of Biden's home and wrote a checklist note ending with "execute," according to testimony by officers in the court filing, first reported by the Daily Beast on Thursday.

After his arrest the "defendant disclosed that he has an interest in terrorist incidents and mass shootings," and had traveled across the country to buy a variety of firearms, the document said.

Treisman&nbsp;was arrested on May 28 and on September 28 was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of child pornography, it said.

Treisman&nbsp;did not have any prior criminal history.

ABC News said it was not clear why&nbsp;Treisman&nbsp;has so far just been charged with possession of child pornography.

A 19-year-old man with a van full of guns and explosives has been charged by feds for plotting the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. It comes on the same day as the last presidential debate and with less than two weeks to go for the US election 2020 on November 3.

A 19-year-old man with a van full of guns and explosives has been charged by feds for plotting the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. It comes on the same day as the last presidential debate and with less than two weeks to go for the US election 2020 on November 3. Alexander Hillel Treisman had posted a meme captioned "should I kill Joe Biden?" The feds believe that it was not an idle threat as Treisman had conducted internet searches seeking information about Biden's home address, state gun laws, and night vision goggles. Also read: In calmer debate, Biden and Trump offer sharply divergent visions for nation He was arrested after a search of his abandoned white Ford van in Kannapolis, North Carolina revealed several weapons including an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle and a canister of explosive material. The search also found books on bomb-making, $509,000 in US currency, and drawings of swastikas and planes crashing into buildings, according to the October 6 filing in the US District Court for the Middle District, North Carolina. The currency was believed to be Treisman's inheritance, officials said in the filing. Following his arrest, the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his phone, computers, and other devices and found 1,248 videos and 6,721 images of child pornography content, according to federal prosecutors.. He also purchased an AR-15 in New Hampshire and traveled to a Wendy's fast-food restaurant within four miles of Biden's home and wrote a checklist note ending with "execute," according to testimony by officers in the court filing, first reported by the Daily Beast on Thursday. After his arrest the "defendant disclosed that he has an interest in terrorist incidents and mass shootings," and had traveled across the country to buy a variety of firearms, the document said. Treisman was arrested on May 28 and on September 28 was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of child pornography, it said. Treisman did not have any prior criminal history. ABC News said it was not clear why Treisman has so far just been charged with possession of child pornography.

US election 2020: 19-year-old charged for plotting the assassination of Joe Biden

United States President Donald Trump abruptly left a solo interview with CBS News’ -- “60 Minutes”, and did not return for an appearance he was scheduled to shoot with Vice-President Mike Pence.

Trump sat down with host Lesley Stahl for only 45 minutes on Tuesday before leaving abruptly the interview. He later told the network he believed they had enough material to use.

Later, Trump posted on Twitter a clip of the reporter at the White House attacking her for not wearing a face mask.

“I am pleased to inform you that, for the sake of accuracy in reporting, I am considering posting my interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, PRIOR TO AIRTIME! “ he added.&nbsp; 
“This will be done so that everybody can get a glimpse of what a FAKE and BIASED interview is all about ... “ Trump tweeted.

According to CNN, however, Stahl had a mask on from the time she entered the White House to when the interview started. The image from the tweet only showed her standing with her producers before she went back to her belongings to wear the mask.

Along with Trump and Pence, former Vice President Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris also gave interviews with CBS and all four are scheduled to appear in a programme on Sunday.&nbsp;

Trump and Pence were scheduled to appear on the Sunday programme together, as they did four years ago for a walk and talk session before Trump decided to end the interview without reason. Biden and Harris, however, filmed their interviews separately.

Polling in states where Trump won in 2016, shows Biden to be ahead this time. Trump admitted that he was upset while standing on the tarmac in Arizona on Monday.

He has, to this end, demanded his attorney general to work “fast” to investigate the unfounded accusations against Biden before the elections. After the panel organising Thursday’s debate announced that the candidates’ microphones would be muted for certain parts of the event, Trump accused them of bias.

United States President Donald Trump abruptly left a solo interview with CBS News’ -- “60 Minutes”, and did not return for an appearance he was scheduled to shoot with Vice-President Mike Pence.

United States President Donald Trump abruptly left a solo interview with CBS News’ -- “60 Minutes”, and did not return for an appearance he was scheduled to shoot with Vice-President Mike Pence. Trump sat down with host Lesley Stahl for only 45 minutes on Tuesday before leaving abruptly the interview. He later told the network he believed they had enough material to use. Later, Trump posted on Twitter a clip of the reporter at the White House attacking her for not wearing a face mask. “I am pleased to inform you that, for the sake of accuracy in reporting, I am considering posting my interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, PRIOR TO AIRTIME! “ he added. “This will be done so that everybody can get a glimpse of what a FAKE and BIASED interview is all about ... “ Trump tweeted. According to CNN, however, Stahl had a mask on from the time she entered the White House to when the interview started. The image from the tweet only showed her standing with her producers before she went back to her belongings to wear the mask. Along with Trump and Pence, former Vice President Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris also gave interviews with CBS and all four are scheduled to appear in a programme on Sunday. Trump and Pence were scheduled to appear on the Sunday programme together, as they did four years ago for a walk and talk session before Trump decided to end the interview without reason. Biden and Harris, however, filmed their interviews separately. Polling in states where Trump won in 2016, shows Biden to be ahead this time. Trump admitted that he was upset while standing on the tarmac in Arizona on Monday. He has, to this end, demanded his attorney general to work “fast” to investigate the unfounded accusations against Biden before the elections. After the panel organising Thursday’s debate announced that the candidates’ microphones would be muted for certain parts of the event, Trump accused them of bias.

Trump abruptly leaves a 60-min interview in only 45 mins

NBC News journalist Kristen&nbsp;Welker&nbsp;has been labeled the ''clear'' and ''obvious winner'' of the final&nbsp;presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Welker has been lauded online for her performance as a moderator for ensuring the candidates did not exceed their time limits and not allowing them to talk over her.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/us-election-2020-who-is-kristen-welker-moderator-of-last-presidential-debate-337231">US election 2020: Who is Kristen Welker, moderator of last presidential debate?</a>

The 44-year-old was&nbsp;born in Philadelphia and studied at Harvard before becoming a reporter.

There have been more than 125,000 tweets about the NBC journalist, who became only the second black woman to moderate a presidential debate alone, 28 years after ABC News journalist Carole Simpson became the first in 1992.

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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Reminder?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Reminder</a>: Only two black women have ever hosted a general election presidential debate. 
 
Carol Simpson (1992) and Kristen Welker (2020). Wild to believe that there's a whole generation of voters (millennial and Gen-Z) who weren't alive during the 92' town hall. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/debates?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#debates</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Debate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Debate</a> <a href="https://t.co/bzFiIqyOy6">pic.twitter.com/bzFiIqyOy6</a>
— Beatrice-Elizabeth Peterson (@MissBeaE) <a href="https://twitter.com/MissBeaE/status/1319475880239026176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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winner of the debate is obviously kristen welker 
 
trump cleared the bar for himself, that is, he didn’t rant and rave again. 
 
biden had a very solid performance. 
 
no game changers here in either direction means, i think, that this is a good result for biden.
— b-boy boooo-eebaisse (@jbouie) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1319468359931580422?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Welker, known for her calm demeanor and incisive questioning, was&nbsp;helped by the muting of the candidates' microphones when they are not answering questions.

Welker was expected to bring order to the showdown in Nashville, Tennessee, after Fox News anchor Chris Wallace was criticised for presiding over a hard-to-watch bickering fest between the septuagenarians last time out.

Following the debate, when Wallace&nbsp;was asked on air what he thought of the tenor of the final debate moderated by Welker. “First of all, I’m jealous,” he said.

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The winner of tonight’s debate is none other than <a href="https://twitter.com/kwelkernbc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kwelkernbc</a>. This debate felt normal. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Debates2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Debates2020</a>
— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) <a href="https://twitter.com/OmarJimenez/status/1319468453846286336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Welker&nbsp;had&nbsp;chosen the six topics for discussion, as tradition dictates. They were: fighting COVID-19, American families, race, climate change, and national security.

Before the debate,&nbsp;President Trump and his entourage had accused her of&nbsp;belonging to the left-wing&nbsp;saying that the parents of the first woman of color to host a presidential debate since 1992 were fervent Democrats.

Welker&nbsp;was registered as a Democrat in 2012 but is not politically affiliated today and has never donated to any party.

NBC News journalist Kristen Welker has been labeled the ''clear'' and ''obvious winner'' of the final presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

NBC News journalist Kristen Welker has been labeled the ''clear'' and ''obvious winner'' of the final presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Welker has been lauded online for her performance as a moderator for ensuring the candidates did not exceed their time limits and not allowing them to talk over her. Also read: US election 2020: Who is Kristen Welker, moderator of last presidential debate? The 44-year-old was born in Philadelphia and studied at Harvard before becoming a reporter. There have been more than 125,000 tweets about the NBC journalist, who became only the second black woman to moderate a presidential debate alone, 28 years after ABC News journalist Carole Simpson became the first in 1992. #Reminder: Only two black women have ever hosted a general election presidential debate. Carol Simpson (1992) and Kristen Welker (2020). Wild to believe that there's a whole generation of voters (millennial and Gen-Z) who weren't alive during the 92' town hall. #debates #Debate pic.twitter.com/bzFiIqyOy6 — Beatrice-Elizabeth Peterson (@MissBeaE) October 23, 2020 × winner of the debate is obviously kristen welker trump cleared the bar for himself, that is, he didn’t rant and rave again. biden had a very solid performance. no game changers here in either direction means, i think, that this is a good result for biden. — b-boy boooo-eebaisse (@jbouie) October 23, 2020 × Welker, known for her calm demeanor and incisive questioning, was helped by the muting of the candidates' microphones when they are not answering questions. Welker was expected to bring order to the showdown in Nashville, Tennessee, after Fox News anchor Chris Wallace was criticised for presiding over a hard-to-watch bickering fest between the septuagenarians last time out. Following the debate, when Wallace was asked on air what he thought of the tenor of the final debate moderated by Welker. “First of all, I’m jealous,” he said. The winner of tonight’s debate is none other than @kwelkernbc. This debate felt normal. #Debates2020 — Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) October 23, 2020 × Welker had chosen the six topics for discussion, as tradition dictates. They were: fighting COVID-19, American families, race, climate change, and national security. Before the debate, President Trump and his entourage had accused her of belonging to the left-wing saying that the parents of the first woman of color to host a presidential debate since 1992 were fervent Democrats. Welker was registered as a Democrat in 2012 but is not politically affiliated today and has never donated to any party.

US election 2020: Social media labels presidential debate moderator Kristen Welker as 'clear winner'

Presidential debates in the United States are an interesting event to be a part of. More so when the incumbent president, Donald Trump is participating in it.

At the second debate, conducted on October 22, the mention of Abraham Lincoln's name, however, raised more eyebrows than Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

On Thursday night, as the debate turned to a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, Biden slammed Trump for his self-praise&nbsp;that said no president since Lincoln has helped Black people more than he has.

"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," Biden said of Trump.

Trump responded: "He made a reference to Abraham Lincoln, where did that come in?"

"You said you're Abraham Lincoln," Biden responded.

"No, no. ... I didn't say 'I'm Abraham Lincoln.' I said, 'Not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what I've done for the Black community.'"

Trump has a history of comparing himself to the country's 16th president. Last year, Trump claimed no other president had been treated as badly by the press as he has, including Lincoln.

The 'Abraham Lincoln' moment became one of the hot topics on social media.

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Biden sarcastically refers to Trump as "Abraham Lincoln," and Trump gets confused by it <a href="https://t.co/Ogdt1QXf3g">pic.twitter.com/Ogdt1QXf3g</a>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1319464085369593861?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Abraham Lincoln is watching tonight: <a href="https://t.co/wgJpBKTN2l">pic.twitter.com/wgJpBKTN2l</a>
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1319463720142163969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Biden: Abraham Lincoln over here... 
 
Trump: I’m not Abraham Lincoln. I’m Donald Trump. 
 
Biden: Yeah we know bro.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1319465268763070464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Fact Check: Donald Trump is correct when he says he’s not Abraham Lincoln
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1319464228294713344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Presidential debates in the United States are an interesting event to be a part of. More so when the incumbent president, Donald Trump is participating in it. At the second debate, conducted on October 22, the mention of Abraham Lincoln's name, however, raised more eyebrows than Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Presidential debates in the United States are an interesting event to be a part of. More so when the incumbent president, Donald Trump is participating in it. At the second debate, conducted on October 22, the mention of Abraham Lincoln's name, however, raised more eyebrows than Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden. On Thursday night, as the debate turned to a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, Biden slammed Trump for his self-praise that said no president since Lincoln has helped Black people more than he has. "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," Biden said of Trump. Trump responded: "He made a reference to Abraham Lincoln, where did that come in?" "You said you're Abraham Lincoln," Biden responded. "No, no. ... I didn't say 'I'm Abraham Lincoln.' I said, 'Not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what I've done for the Black community.'" Trump has a history of comparing himself to the country's 16th president. Last year, Trump claimed no other president had been treated as badly by the press as he has, including Lincoln. The 'Abraham Lincoln' moment became one of the hot topics on social media. Biden sarcastically refers to Trump as "Abraham Lincoln," and Trump gets confused by it pic.twitter.com/Ogdt1QXf3g — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 23, 2020 × Abraham Lincoln is watching tonight: pic.twitter.com/wgJpBKTN2l — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) October 23, 2020 × Biden: Abraham Lincoln over here... Trump: I’m not Abraham Lincoln. I’m Donald Trump. Biden: Yeah we know bro. — Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 23, 2020 × Fact Check: Donald Trump is correct when he says he’s not Abraham Lincoln — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 23, 2020 ×

'Abraham Lincoln here...': Trump misses Biden's joke at presidential debate

US election 2020: Trump family finally wears facemasks at the last presidential debate

US President Donald Trump on Thursday described the air in India as "filthy" as he denounced Democratic rival Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change.

At their second and final presidential debate, Trump renewed his criticism that action on climate change was unfair to the United States.

"Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia, look at India -- it's filthy. The air is filthy," Trump said at the debate in Nashville.

This came despite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi having shared a friendly relationship with the United States.

People -- across India and on the social media -- were surprised, some shocked to see such blatant statements from the American president. They took to Twitter to express the dismay and surprise. A few even said they agreed with Trump.

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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilthyIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilthyIndia</a> is Trending <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@narendramodi</a> ur friend <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> is not taking ur friendship seriously <a href="https://t.co/b0dDlZznvn">pic.twitter.com/b0dDlZznvn</a>
— Deepanshu (@Deepanshu929) <a href="https://twitter.com/Deepanshu929/status/1319572652093132803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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116k infants d!ed in India within a month of their birth during the year 2019. That's another thing India tops in. 
 
Filthy air is only called filthy air. 
 
Since Doland said it out hope that hurts at the right places.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilthyIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilthyIndia</a> <a href="https://t.co/vaPJr6HnoC">pic.twitter.com/vaPJr6HnoC</a>
— Beeno🌼💖 Tesla's Coil⚡ (@RebelGeek1111) <a href="https://twitter.com/RebelGeek1111/status/1319546619809964033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is India!! 
Even after 7 decades, 90 % still does not have access to toileting facilities🤧🤧🤧<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilthyIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilthyIndia</a> <a href="https://t.co/kffPj5SbND">pic.twitter.com/kffPj5SbND</a>
— Dr Fatima K - PTI (FOLLOW 4 ANY MEDICAL ADVICE ) (@p4pakipower) <a href="https://twitter.com/p4pakipower/status/1319563560268320769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Delhi's Air Quality Index is 567 
 
Washington DC's Air Quality Index is 25 
 
Pic 1: Delhi 
Pic 2: Washington DC 
 
And, we are to blame. We need to change our ways. 
 
Don't give "pollution less" gyaan only on Diwali. Follow that lifestyle all through the year.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilthyIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilthyIndia</a> <a href="https://t.co/4birxOo5QM">pic.twitter.com/4birxOo5QM</a>
— Vaidehi 🇮🇳 🕉️ (@dharmicverangna) <a href="https://twitter.com/dharmicverangna/status/1319537322291990530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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We don't mind keeping our country filthy, we just don't like being called that by someone else. 
 
If you don't want to be called filthy, clean up!! 
Remember you needed a PM to talk from the Red Fort on 15th August 2014 to tell you we needed toilets.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilthyIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilthyIndia</a>
— Just B (@JustPunforfun) <a href="https://twitter.com/JustPunforfun/status/1319541157152473088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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At the first presidential debate, Trump also spoke critically of India, questioning its coronavirus data amid criticism of his handling of the pandemic.

Trump made the remarks despite having pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, which aims to cap global warming "well below" two degrees Celsius.

The planet has already been warmed by around one degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, enough to boost the intensity of deadly heat waves, droughts and tropical storms.

Trump's remarks come days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper visit New Delhi for talks on building the growing US-India partnership.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday described the air in India as "filthy" as he denounced Democratic rival Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change. At their second and final presidential debate, Trump renewed his criticism that action on climate change was unfair to the United States.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday described the air in India as "filthy" as he denounced Democratic rival Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change. At their second and final presidential debate, Trump renewed his criticism that action on climate change was unfair to the United States. "Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia, look at India -- it's filthy. The air is filthy," Trump said at the debate in Nashville. This came despite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi having shared a friendly relationship with the United States. People -- across India and on the social media -- were surprised, some shocked to see such blatant statements from the American president. They took to Twitter to express the dismay and surprise. A few even said they agreed with Trump. #FilthyIndia is Trending @narendramodi ur friend @realDonaldTrump is not taking ur friendship seriously pic.twitter.com/b0dDlZznvn — Deepanshu (@Deepanshu929) October 23, 2020 × 116k infants d!ed in India within a month of their birth during the year 2019. That's another thing India tops in. Filthy air is only called filthy air. Since Doland said it out hope that hurts at the right places.#FilthyIndia pic.twitter.com/vaPJr6HnoC — Beeno🌼💖 Tesla's Coil⚡ (@RebelGeek1111) October 23, 2020 × This is India!! Even after 7 decades, 90 % still does not have access to toileting facilities🤧🤧🤧#FilthyIndia pic.twitter.com/kffPj5SbND — Dr Fatima K - PTI (FOLLOW 4 ANY MEDICAL ADVICE ) (@p4pakipower) October 23, 2020 × Delhi's Air Quality Index is 567 Washington DC's Air Quality Index is 25 Pic 1: Delhi Pic 2: Washington DC And, we are to blame. We need to change our ways. Don't give "pollution less" gyaan only on Diwali. Follow that lifestyle all through the year.#FilthyIndia pic.twitter.com/4birxOo5QM — Vaidehi 🇮🇳 🕉️ (@dharmicverangna) October 23, 2020 × We don't mind keeping our country filthy, we just don't like being called that by someone else. If you don't want to be called filthy, clean up!! Remember you needed a PM to talk from the Red Fort on 15th August 2014 to tell you we needed toilets.#FilthyIndia — Just B (@JustPunforfun) October 23, 2020 × At the first presidential debate, Trump also spoke critically of India, questioning its coronavirus data amid criticism of his handling of the pandemic. Trump made the remarks despite having pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, which aims to cap global warming "well below" two degrees Celsius. The planet has already been warmed by around one degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, enough to boost the intensity of deadly heat waves, droughts and tropical storms. Trump's remarks come days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper visit New Delhi for talks on building the growing US-India partnership.

Trump calls India air 'filthy'; social media fills in

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system.

The debate was, on the whole, a more restrained affair than the first encounter between the two candidates last month, when Trump harangued Biden for most of an hour and a half and effectively short-circuited any policy debate. But if the tenor of Thursday’s forum was more sedate, the conflict in matters of substance and vision could not have been more dramatic.

From the opening minutes, the two candidates took opposing stances on the pandemic, with Trump promising, in defiance of evidence, that the disease was “going away” while Biden called for much more aggressive federal action for the “dark winter” ahead.

Trump, who badgered Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, “all talk and no action.” And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Biden and members of his family.

Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own reelection, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again, even as polls show that a majority of voters believe the worst of the coronavirus crisis is still ahead.

Trailing in a series of crucial swing states, and with 48 million Americans having already voted, the president was under more pressure. But while he proved he can engage in a more conventional political jousting, it was less clear whether his performance could prompt people who dislike him to reconsider their well-ingrained perceptions.

Biden, for his part, stuck to the core of the argument that has propelled his campaign from the start, denouncing Trump as a divisive and unethical leader who has botched the federal response to a devastating public-health crisis. Though Trump pushed him onto the defensive repeatedly, the former vice president also laid out a fuller version of his own policy agenda than he managed in the first debate, calling for large-scale economic stimulus spending, new aid to states battling the pandemic and a muscular expansion of health care and worker benefits nationwide.

Significantly, Biden made no serious error of the sort that could haunt him in the final days of a race in which he’s leading.

Of all the disagreements between the two candidates, none blazed more brightly than their assessments of the U.S. experience battling the coronavirus.

Prompted by the moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC News, to explain his plan for the coming months, Trump stuck to the sunny message he has delivered at recent campaign rallies, promising a vaccine in short order and citing his own recovery from a bout with the virus as an example of medical progress. The president boasted that he was now “immune” to the disease, and insisted that states like Texas and Florida had seen the virus fade away, even as case counts are on the rise across the country.

“I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we’ve been able to do,” Trump said, without offering any specifics.

Biden, in response, pressed a focused and familiar line of attack against the president, faulting him for doing “virtually nothing” to head off the pandemic early this year and heading into the coldest part of the year with no defined plan to control the virus. Holding up a face mask, Biden said he would encourage all Americans to don them and would ramp up rapid testing on a national scale.

“We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan,” Biden said. Trump shot back: “I don’t think we’re going to have a dark winter at all — we’re opening up our country.”

But when the president said “we’re learning to live with” the coronavirus, Biden pounced. “We’re learning to die with it,” he said.

“Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said, adding, “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.”

The president did, however, say for the first time, “I take full responsibility” for the impact of the virus. Then he quickly sought to skirt blame. “It’s not my fault that it came here — it’s China’s fault,” he said.

The debate Thursday, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, represented perhaps the last opportunity for Trump to shake up the presidential campaign and claw his way into closer contention against Biden with just 11 days remaining.

Trump was more coherent than in the first debate, getting off a series of attack lines depicting Biden as a career politician and avoiding harsh personal critiques of his children.

With the candidates’ microphones turned off at times while the other was speaking, a new rule implemented to avoid a repeat of Trump’s constant interruptions in the first debate, their facial expressions often did the talking. When Biden said Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, was being “used as a Russian pawn,” the president gaped and jarred his head to the right. And when Trump insisted, not for the first time, that he would release his tax returns after an IRS audit, Biden let out a wide, here-we-go-again grin.

It was in the second segment of the debate that the exchanges turned sharply personal, as the focus shifted to foreign interference in U.S. elections. Biden spoke first, warning that countries like Russia and Iran would “pay a price” for tampering with the campaign. Alluding to unsubstantiated stories about him that have circulated in conservative media, Biden chided Trump for the actions of “his buddy Rudy Giuliani.”

Trump rapidly escalated matters, brandishing the unproven allegations about Biden’s son to accuse his rival of personally taking money from foreign interests. “They were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are,” Trump said, leveling a charge for which no evidence has surfaced. An investigation by Senate Republicans found no evidence that Biden, the former vice president, engaged in wrongdoing over his son’s business dealings.

Biden rejected the charge, saying he had “not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” Pushing back on the president, he cited a New York Times report that Trump maintained a Chinese bank account and challenged the president to let the American people see his tax returns. “Release your tax returns,” Biden said, “or stop talking about corruption.”

The extended back-and-forth was the most prominent airing so far of the negative message that Trump clearly sees as his best chance of undermining Biden in the final days of the presidential campaign. But the clash did not yield the kind of explosive confrontation that strategists on both sides had anticipated, and in some cases feared.

As Trump peppered Biden with exaggerated or baseless charges, Biden repeatedly countered, “Not true,” sometimes without elaboration, and the segment took on a kind of flat and circular shape.

After the protracted back-and-forth, Biden sought to pivot with a rehearsed line in, saying: “It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.”

Biden’s strongest moment may have been when he looked into the camera and knowingly addressed voters. “You know who he is,” he said, alluding to Trump. “You know his character. You know my character. You know our reputations for honor and telling the truth.”

 
At times, the debate resembled a more conventional political clash between a Democrat and a Republican, albeit with an incumbent president quick to distort his opponent’s positions.

“He wants socialized medicine,” Trump insisted of Biden, citing the stances of more liberal Democrats, including Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both former primary foes of Biden.

“He thinks he’s running against someone else,” Biden said, adding, “I beat all those other people because I disagreed with him.”

 
The candidates both expressed support for new federal spending on a large scale to help prop up the economy and aid distressed individuals and households, an initiative still gridlocked on Capitol Hill. Trump again blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the holdup, promising that if a deal were arranged, lawmakers from his own party would fall in line.

But he continued to draw a firm line against Democratic-backed plans to help distressed states and cities close immense budget gaps. That aspect of the Democrats’ legislation, the president said, was merely “a big bailout for badly run Democrat cities and states.”

Biden called state relief an urgent priority and defended his party’s congressional wing, pointing out that it passed new relief legislation that had languished before the Republican Senate. And he put the onus on Trump to drum up support in that chamber. “Why isn’t he talking to his Republican friends?” Biden said.

 
Days after it was reported that the government had failed to locate the parents of more than 500 migrant children separated from them by the Trump administration, the president repeatedly evaded questions about how he intended to reunite those families. “We are trying very hard,” Trump said, before attempting to pivot into an attack on the Obama administration’s border policies.

But Biden castigated the president for imposing a family separation policy in the first place. “Those kids are alone — nowhere to go,” Biden said. “It is criminal. It is criminal.”

And he also suggested he would be more effective at addressing the issue than the president he served — Barack Obama.

“I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States,” Biden said, vowing to deliver an immigration overhaul that offers unauthorized migrants a pathway to legal status in the first 100 days of his administration.

After Biden described climate change as an “existential threat” requiring an all-out government response, Trump made a counterargument riddled with inaccuracies and some allegations that were simply perplexing. He claimed falsely that the construction of renewable-energy facilities created more emissions than traditional fuels, and accused Biden of trying to mandate that buildings be constructed with “little, tiny, small windows.” And he again insisted that wind energy is “extremely expensive” and “kills all the birds.”

In a debate that was originally planned as a forum on national security, the two candidates devoted only a few glancing exchanges to the subject. In one, Trump took credit for averting war on the Korean Peninsula, touting his “good relationship” with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and faulting the Obama administration for failing to establish such relations. Kim, he said, “didn’t like Obama.”

Biden defended the Obama administration’s view of Korean diplomacy, explaining that it had not wanted to “legitimize” Kim.

At the end of the debate, Biden said he would push the country to “transition from the oil industry,” adding that “the oil industry pollutes significantly” and that he would end federal subsidies. Sensing an opening, Trump said “that’s a big statement” and then invoked a series of states with energy-heavy industries. “Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?”

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system.

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system. The debate was, on the whole, a more restrained affair than the first encounter between the two candidates last month, when Trump harangued Biden for most of an hour and a half and effectively short-circuited any policy debate. But if the tenor of Thursday’s forum was more sedate, the conflict in matters of substance and vision could not have been more dramatic. From the opening minutes, the two candidates took opposing stances on the pandemic, with Trump promising, in defiance of evidence, that the disease was “going away” while Biden called for much more aggressive federal action for the “dark winter” ahead. Trump, who badgered Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, “all talk and no action.” And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Biden and members of his family. Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own reelection, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again, even as polls show that a majority of voters believe the worst of the coronavirus crisis is still ahead. Trailing in a series of crucial swing states, and with 48 million Americans having already voted, the president was under more pressure. But while he proved he can engage in a more conventional political jousting, it was less clear whether his performance could prompt people who dislike him to reconsider their well-ingrained perceptions. Biden, for his part, stuck to the core of the argument that has propelled his campaign from the start, denouncing Trump as a divisive and unethical leader who has botched the federal response to a devastating public-health crisis. Though Trump pushed him onto the defensive repeatedly, the former vice president also laid out a fuller version of his own policy agenda than he managed in the first debate, calling for large-scale economic stimulus spending, new aid to states battling the pandemic and a muscular expansion of health care and worker benefits nationwide. Significantly, Biden made no serious error of the sort that could haunt him in the final days of a race in which he’s leading. Of all the disagreements between the two candidates, none blazed more brightly than their assessments of the U.S. experience battling the coronavirus. Prompted by the moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC News, to explain his plan for the coming months, Trump stuck to the sunny message he has delivered at recent campaign rallies, promising a vaccine in short order and citing his own recovery from a bout with the virus as an example of medical progress. The president boasted that he was now “immune” to the disease, and insisted that states like Texas and Florida had seen the virus fade away, even as case counts are on the rise across the country. “I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we’ve been able to do,” Trump said, without offering any specifics. Biden, in response, pressed a focused and familiar line of attack against the president, faulting him for doing “virtually nothing” to head off the pandemic early this year and heading into the coldest part of the year with no defined plan to control the virus. Holding up a face mask, Biden said he would encourage all Americans to don them and would ramp up rapid testing on a national scale. “We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan,” Biden said. Trump shot back: “I don’t think we’re going to have a dark winter at all — we’re opening up our country.” But when the president said “we’re learning to live with” the coronavirus, Biden pounced. “We’re learning to die with it,” he said. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said, adding, “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.” The president did, however, say for the first time, “I take full responsibility” for the impact of the virus. Then he quickly sought to skirt blame. “It’s not my fault that it came here — it’s China’s fault,” he said. The debate Thursday, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, represented perhaps the last opportunity for Trump to shake up the presidential campaign and claw his way into closer contention against Biden with just 11 days remaining. Trump was more coherent than in the first debate, getting off a series of attack lines depicting Biden as a career politician and avoiding harsh personal critiques of his children. With the candidates’ microphones turned off at times while the other was speaking, a new rule implemented to avoid a repeat of Trump’s constant interruptions in the first debate, their facial expressions often did the talking. When Biden said Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, was being “used as a Russian pawn,” the president gaped and jarred his head to the right. And when Trump insisted, not for the first time, that he would release his tax returns after an IRS audit, Biden let out a wide, here-we-go-again grin. It was in the second segment of the debate that the exchanges turned sharply personal, as the focus shifted to foreign interference in U.S. elections. Biden spoke first, warning that countries like Russia and Iran would “pay a price” for tampering with the campaign. Alluding to unsubstantiated stories about him that have circulated in conservative media, Biden chided Trump for the actions of “his buddy Rudy Giuliani.” Trump rapidly escalated matters, brandishing the unproven allegations about Biden’s son to accuse his rival of personally taking money from foreign interests. “They were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are,” Trump said, leveling a charge for which no evidence has surfaced. An investigation by Senate Republicans found no evidence that Biden, the former vice president, engaged in wrongdoing over his son’s business dealings. Biden rejected the charge, saying he had “not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” Pushing back on the president, he cited a New York Times report that Trump maintained a Chinese bank account and challenged the president to let the American people see his tax returns. “Release your tax returns,” Biden said, “or stop talking about corruption.” The extended back-and-forth was the most prominent airing so far of the negative message that Trump clearly sees as his best chance of undermining Biden in the final days of the presidential campaign. But the clash did not yield the kind of explosive confrontation that strategists on both sides had anticipated, and in some cases feared. As Trump peppered Biden with exaggerated or baseless charges, Biden repeatedly countered, “Not true,” sometimes without elaboration, and the segment took on a kind of flat and circular shape. After the protracted back-and-forth, Biden sought to pivot with a rehearsed line in, saying: “It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.” Biden’s strongest moment may have been when he looked into the camera and knowingly addressed voters. “You know who he is,” he said, alluding to Trump. “You know his character. You know my character. You know our reputations for honor and telling the truth.” At times, the debate resembled a more conventional political clash between a Democrat and a Republican, albeit with an incumbent president quick to distort his opponent’s positions. “He wants socialized medicine,” Trump insisted of Biden, citing the stances of more liberal Democrats, including Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both former primary foes of Biden. “He thinks he’s running against someone else,” Biden said, adding, “I beat all those other people because I disagreed with him.” The candidates both expressed support for new federal spending on a large scale to help prop up the economy and aid distressed individuals and households, an initiative still gridlocked on Capitol Hill. Trump again blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the holdup, promising that if a deal were arranged, lawmakers from his own party would fall in line. But he continued to draw a firm line against Democratic-backed plans to help distressed states and cities close immense budget gaps. That aspect of the Democrats’ legislation, the president said, was merely “a big bailout for badly run Democrat cities and states.” Biden called state relief an urgent priority and defended his party’s congressional wing, pointing out that it passed new relief legislation that had languished before the Republican Senate. And he put the onus on Trump to drum up support in that chamber. “Why isn’t he talking to his Republican friends?” Biden said. Days after it was reported that the government had failed to locate the parents of more than 500 migrant children separated from them by the Trump administration, the president repeatedly evaded questions about how he intended to reunite those families. “We are trying very hard,” Trump said, before attempting to pivot into an attack on the Obama administration’s border policies. But Biden castigated the president for imposing a family separation policy in the first place. “Those kids are alone — nowhere to go,” Biden said. “It is criminal. It is criminal.” And he also suggested he would be more effective at addressing the issue than the president he served — Barack Obama. “I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States,” Biden said, vowing to deliver an immigration overhaul that offers unauthorized migrants a pathway to legal status in the first 100 days of his administration. After Biden described climate change as an “existential threat” requiring an all-out government response, Trump made a counterargument riddled with inaccuracies and some allegations that were simply perplexing. He claimed falsely that the construction of renewable-energy facilities created more emissions than traditional fuels, and accused Biden of trying to mandate that buildings be constructed with “little, tiny, small windows.” And he again insisted that wind energy is “extremely expensive” and “kills all the birds.” In a debate that was originally planned as a forum on national security, the two candidates devoted only a few glancing exchanges to the subject. In one, Trump took credit for averting war on the Korean Peninsula, touting his “good relationship” with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and faulting the Obama administration for failing to establish such relations. Kim, he said, “didn’t like Obama.” Biden defended the Obama administration’s view of Korean diplomacy, explaining that it had not wanted to “legitimize” Kim. At the end of the debate, Biden said he would push the country to “transition from the oil industry,” adding that “the oil industry pollutes significantly” and that he would end federal subsidies. Sensing an opening, Trump said “that’s a big statement” and then invoked a series of states with energy-heavy industries. “Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?”

In calmer debate, Biden and Trump offer sharply divergent visions for nation

Watch the final round of presidential debate of the 2020 US election between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Watch: Final round of presidential debate of the 2020 US election between Donald Trump & Joe Biden

US judiciary committee approves Amy Coney Barrett nomination. The committee's approval for Amy Coney Barrett for Donald Trump's Supreme Court choice has cleared the way for full senate vote.

US judiciary committee approves Amy Coney Barrett nomination for Supreme Court

US Election 2020: Donald Trump, Joe Biden appear for last presidential debate

US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden squared off against each other in second presidential debate on Friday. This was their last one-on-one debate before November 3 polls.

<h2>Here are some of the&nbsp;quotes from the presidential debate</h2>

On coronavirus pandemic

Donald Trump: "We're fighting it and we're fighting it hard… We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away"

Joe Biden:&nbsp;"This is the same fellow told you this is going to end by Easter last time. This is 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."

Joe Biden: "(Trump) says, we're learning to live with it (coronavirus). People are learning to die with it,"

Donald Trump on Dr Fauci: "I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"I don't know if we're going to have a dark winter, and at all. We're opening up our country. We've learned and studied and understand the disease."

On Russia and Iran

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"You are getting a lot of money from Russia. You owe an explanation to the American people, you have to clean it up,

Joe Biden: "I haven't taken a single penny from any foreign country whatsoever"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"Joe got three and a half million dollars from Russia,"

Joe Biden: ""Russia does not want me to be elected,"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;&nbsp;"Nobody is tougher on Russia than me,"

&nbsp;

On Affordable healthcare

Donald Trump: "No matter how well you run (the Affordable Care Act), it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminate it. We have the individual mandate done. I don't know that it's going to work. If we don't win (in court) ... we'll have Obamacare but it will be better run."

Donald Trump: "Always protect people with pre-existing conditions"

Joe Biden: "We will make sure we reduce healthcare insurance premiums"

Joe BIden:&nbsp;"I am not against private insurance."

Joe Biden:&nbsp;"Healthcare is not a privilege, it's a right"

&nbsp;

On North Korea

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"When I met with Obama, he said our biggest problem is North Korea. He indicated that we will have a war with North Korea. We have a different kind of relationship with the guy and there is no war. He is not going to do that,"

DonaldTrump: "You know what? North Korea - we're not in a war. We have a good relationship."

Joe Biden: "We had a good relationship with Hitler before he in fact invaded Europe. Come on." 
&nbsp;

On racism

Joe Biden:&nbsp;"There is institutional racism in America"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"I am the least racist person in this room."

Donald Trump: "He called black community 'super predators'"

Joe Biden: "I did not say anything he is accusing me of"

&nbsp;

On immigration

Donald Trump: "Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels..We let people in but they have to come in legally."

Joe Biden on children separated at the border: “It makes us a laughingstock and it violates every notion of who we are.” 
 
Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-calls-donald-trumps-immigration-policies-criminal-337306">US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal'</a> 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-calls-donald-trumps-immigration-policies-criminal-337306">On Climate change</a>

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"We have the best carbon emission numbers we've had in 35 years under this administration. Look&nbsp;how 'filthy'&nbsp;are Russia and China, look at India...the air is so filthy".

Donald Trump: "We have done an incredible job environmentally"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"(Wind energy) is very expensive, kills a lot of birds,"

Joe Biden: "Climate change global warming is&nbsp;existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it"

Donald Trump:&nbsp;"I will not sacrifice tens and millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris accords,"

&nbsp;

US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden squared off against each other in second presidential debate on Friday. This was their last one-on-one debate before November 3 polls.

US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden squared off against each other in second presidential debate on Friday. This was their last one-on-one debate before November 3 polls. Here are some of the quotes from the presidential debate On coronavirus pandemic Donald Trump: "We're fighting it and we're fighting it hard… We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away" Joe Biden: "This is the same fellow told you this is going to end by Easter last time. This is 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." Joe Biden: "(Trump) says, we're learning to live with it (coronavirus). People are learning to die with it," Donald Trump on Dr Fauci: "I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK" Donald Trump: "I don't know if we're going to have a dark winter, and at all. We're opening up our country. We've learned and studied and understand the disease." On Russia and Iran Donald Trump: "You are getting a lot of money from Russia. You owe an explanation to the American people, you have to clean it up, Joe Biden: "I haven't taken a single penny from any foreign country whatsoever" Donald Trump: "Joe got three and a half million dollars from Russia," Joe Biden: ""Russia does not want me to be elected," Donald Trump: "Nobody is tougher on Russia than me," On Affordable healthcare Donald Trump: "No matter how well you run (the Affordable Care Act), it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminate it. We have the individual mandate done. I don't know that it's going to work. If we don't win (in court) ... we'll have Obamacare but it will be better run." Donald Trump: "Always protect people with pre-existing conditions" Joe Biden: "We will make sure we reduce healthcare insurance premiums" Joe BIden: "I am not against private insurance." Joe Biden: "Healthcare is not a privilege, it's a right" On North Korea Donald Trump: "When I met with Obama, he said our biggest problem is North Korea. He indicated that we will have a war with North Korea. We have a different kind of relationship with the guy and there is no war. He is not going to do that," DonaldTrump: "You know what? North Korea - we're not in a war. We have a good relationship." Joe Biden: "We had a good relationship with Hitler before he in fact invaded Europe. Come on." On racism Joe Biden: "There is institutional racism in America" Donald Trump: "I am the least racist person in this room." Donald Trump: "He called black community 'super predators'" Joe Biden: "I did not say anything he is accusing me of" On immigration Donald Trump: "Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels..We let people in but they have to come in legally." Joe Biden on children separated at the border: “It makes us a laughingstock and it violates every notion of who we are.” Also Read | US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal' On Climate change Donald Trump: "We have the best carbon emission numbers we've had in 35 years under this administration. Look how 'filthy' are Russia and China, look at India...the air is so filthy". Donald Trump: "We have done an incredible job environmentally" Donald Trump: "(Wind energy) is very expensive, kills a lot of birds," Joe Biden: "Climate change global warming is existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it" Donald Trump: "I will not sacrifice tens and millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris accords,"

US Elections 2020: Quotes from Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the presidential debate

US President is known for his unique stance on various issues. Countless of his quotes have caused an outcry as well as have left people in splits. This happened again during the presidential debate between him and Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden. During the course of the debate, Trump said that wind energy "kills all the birds. Joe Biden gave a chuckle at this bizarre assertion.

Trump said his knew more about wind energy than Joe Biden

"It (wind energy) is very expensive, kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. It has got a lot of problems," said Trump.

He went on to say that the windmills were made in China and Germany and said that the fumes coming out during the manufacturing process "is more than anything we are talking about" with respect to carbon emissions.

"Find me a scientist who says that," Joe Biden said coolly.

Biden underlined that energy sector pertaining to wind and solar were the fastest growing fields that would create new jobs

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-cannot-guarantee-donald-trump-backtracks-on-covid-19-vaccine-joe-biden-slams-his-approach-337283">'I cannot guarantee': Donald Trump backtracks on COVID-19 vaccine; Joe Biden slams his approach</a>

"He thinks wind causes cancer, windmills," said Biden in an incredulous tone.

Trump is known for his hawkish views on environmental matters. In past, he has even claimed that climate change and global warming was a "hoax".

He defended his decision to take the US out of Paris accords.

"The Paris accords, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly," said Trump.

Lashing out at previous administrations, Trump said that they did a great 'disservice' by being part of the treaty and alleged that previous governments were going to take away our businesses.

US President is known for his unique stance on various issues. Countless of his quotes have caused an outcry as well as have left people in splits. This happened again during the presidential debate between him and Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden.

US President is known for his unique stance on various issues. Countless of his quotes have caused an outcry as well as have left people in splits. This happened again during the presidential debate between him and Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden. During the course of the debate, Trump said that wind energy "kills all the birds. Joe Biden gave a chuckle at this bizarre assertion. Trump said his knew more about wind energy than Joe Biden "It (wind energy) is very expensive, kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. It has got a lot of problems," said Trump. He went on to say that the windmills were made in China and Germany and said that the fumes coming out during the manufacturing process "is more than anything we are talking about" with respect to carbon emissions. "Find me a scientist who says that," Joe Biden said coolly. Biden underlined that energy sector pertaining to wind and solar were the fastest growing fields that would create new jobs Also Read | 'I cannot guarantee': Donald Trump backtracks on COVID-19 vaccine; Joe Biden slams his approach "He thinks wind causes cancer, windmills," said Biden in an incredulous tone. Trump is known for his hawkish views on environmental matters. In past, he has even claimed that climate change and global warming was a "hoax". He defended his decision to take the US out of Paris accords. "The Paris accords, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly," said Trump. Lashing out at previous administrations, Trump said that they did a great 'disservice' by being part of the treaty and alleged that previous governments were going to take away our businesses.

US Elections 2020: Wind energy kills birds, says Donald Trump during presidential debate

Before the president’s last, best chance to change the trajectory of his reelection bid, his mandate Thursday evening was at once clear and complicated: Be less like Donald Trump.

It can be said that he tried, by his standard. He succeeded at various points in acting like the type of person he claims to disdain: a typical politician in a debate. He spoke with an inside voice while saluting his own pandemic response. He interrupted far less. He thanked the moderator for letting him chime in and did not sound sarcastic while doing so.

And it is far from certain that he helped himself enough anyway.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/us-election-2020-donald-trump-joe-biden-appear-for-last-presidential-debate-337290">Have a look|&nbsp;US Election 2020: Donald Trump, Joe Biden appear for last presidential debate</a>

Swiveling all night between heeding the advice of allies who have pleaded for uncharacteristic discipline and succumbing to impulses that can still consume him as he faces down an opponent he cannot process losing to, Trump stood before the electorate a candidate in conflict at his late campaign hour.

If Trump appeared to recognize that the debate represented his final mass audience less than two weeks before Election Day, he also showed the limits of even a more finely calibrated executive performance.

In an election that Joe Biden’s team has sought to frame as a referendum on the incumbent, particularly his handling of the coronavirus — an endeavor that Trump has often made quite straightforward for his rival — it was the president who entered Thursday night with more work to do, given the national and battleground state surveys showing him behind.

At times, his answers seemed tailored explicitly with this deficit in mind, targeted at groups with whom he must improve his standing, like seniors, whom he pledged at one point to “protect” four times in a matter of seconds.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-calls-donald-trumps-immigration-policies-criminal-337306">Also read|&nbsp;US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal'</a>

But in a moment of relentless national upheaval, manifesting in protest, public health crisis and immense financial turmoil, Trump also could not help but accentuate the most essential qualities of his tenure Thursday, reverting to fits of magical-thinking-aloud and grievance-stuffed nonrestraint.

He set off on an extended meditation — most likely to resonate with only dedicated consumers of right-wing media — on whether Biden’s nickname was “the big man” as it related to his son’s business dealings. He dwelled on “the emails, the emails, the horrible emails” with conspiratorial repetition.

He invoked Abraham Lincoln to praise his own contributions to Black Americans.

He specked his virus defense with an aside that “we can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does,” before nodding at purportedly shadowy sources of Biden family wealth. (“He’s obviously made a lot of money someplace,” he said.)

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/other-countries-will-pay-a-price-joe-biden-and-donald-trump-talk-about-russian-interference-337295">Also read|&nbsp;Other countries 'will pay a price': Joe Biden and Donald Trump talk about Russian interference</a>

The president’s opponents like to say there is only one Trump, and his advisers like to describe a different one: compassionate in private, they insist; altruistic in nature; brawling only when the task dictates as much.

Too often — and despite his best efforts Thursday — this latter case has tended to collapse in a hail of misstatement and self-congratulation.

He can resemble a chef with one dish, a golfer with one club in his bag — regardless of what the next stroke might require — and a propensity to blame his caddie for the attendant result.

If voters reject him next month, this will be the chief reason: The 2020 campaign is different, and Trump is not.

He still focused extensively Thursday on often unsubstantiated allegations against his opponent’s son, defying some Republican allies who have counseled that the attacks connect little beyond the conservative echo chamber where Trump is already beloved.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-calls-donald-trumps-immigration-policies-criminal-337306">Also read|&nbsp;US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal'</a>

He still made virtually no attempt to outline a comprehensive second-term agenda that might appeal to any remaining political fence-sitters — to the extent that there are many left, in an election where many millions have already voted and most others are largely set in their views, according to polling.

Of course, political pliability was probably never going to be a prominent feature in a contest between two proud men in their 70s. Biden likewise demonstrated Thursday that he is very much the candidate that voters have come to know, for good or ill, across the decades: a creature of a bygone Washington, prone to throwback references, never entirely smooth.

He spoke of “Bidencare” and made a curious allusion to Hitler. He strained to supply a compelling rebuttal to Trump’s charge that he has been around Washington for almost a half-century to little effect.

Biden was often at his strongest pressing Trump on his stewardship during the pandemic, suggesting the president did not have the capacity to evolve in the job.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-elections-2020-i-think-hes-a-democrat-but-thats-ok-says-trump-on-fauci-337286">Also read|&nbsp;US Elections 2020: I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK, says Trump on Fauci</a>

“He says we’re learning to live with it,” Biden said of the virus. “People are learning to die with it.”

In an exchange about immigration, Biden highlighted the 545 children who were separated from their parents at the border, and whose parents cannot be located. “It makes us a laughingstock, and violates every notion of who we are as a nation,” Biden said.

Trump’s retort was to claim the children are “well taken care of,” and then to focus on the cages that have been used to hold them. “Who built the cages, Joe?”

A businessman who has long specialized in setting Houdini-like traps for himself and then trying to escape, Trump appeared mindful that this is almost certainly the last time he will ever be on a debate stage. In 2016, he managed to stay relatively disciplined for the final 10 days of the race, something his advisers have lamented since the disastrous last debate.

And if he was not his most unruly self Thursday, he also remains a man who believes firmly that a refusal to modulate is part of what delivered him to his position in the first place — reason enough, supporters say, to be reminded that this race is not yet over.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-cannot-guarantee-donald-trump-backtracks-on-covid-19-vaccine-joe-biden-slams-his-approach-337283">Also read|&nbsp;'I cannot guarantee': Donald Trump backtracks on COVID-19 vaccine; Joe Biden slams his approach</a>

Through essentially his entire professional life, the president has delighted in making others adjust to his tics and whims, secure in the knowledge that if history was instructive, everything would more or less work out for him anyway.

He created the impression of business success by insisting, as loudly and frequently as possible, that he was successful at business. He flattened campaign precedent with gleeful name-calling and race-baiting and was rewarded with the presidency. He faced impeachment after encouraging a foreign government to investigate a rival and was, in his estimation, thoroughly vindicated when Senate Republicans declined to expel him from office.

Even the debate rules Thursday were an exercise in adapting to Trump and not the other way around: The candidates were muted for their counterpart’s opening answers to each topic, given Trump’s fire hose of interruptions the last time.

Such guard rails were only ever going to curb him so much. Trump had made clear that he was going to spend a portion of the night hammering Biden over his son’s business ventures, the subject of fevered attention (and more than occasional misinformation and misleading innuendo) on the president’s favored media outlets in recent days.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-elections-2020-quotes-from-donald-trump-and-joe-biden-during-the-presidential-debate-337286">Also read|&nbsp;US Elections 2020: Quotes from Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the presidential debate</a>

The strategy presented perils for both candidates. Biden has been known to grow flustered when challenged on matters of family, lashing out not only at opponents but also at members of the news media who question whether his son Hunter leveraged the Biden name for personal gain.

But there is little evidence that the approach has much helped Trump with the voters he needs: seniors, suburban women, those disinclined to share the president’s interest in the Fox News prime-time lineup.

Biden is also often at his most sympathetic when discussing his personal history, rife with tragedies like the car crash that killed his first wife and baby daughter in 1972 and the death of his son Beau from brain cancer in 2015.

Discussing Hunter, who has struggled with addiction, the former vice president has often appended a pointed descriptor: “my surviving son.”

Trump was undeterred, as ever.

For days leading up to the debate, he bypassed formal preparation but heard from a core group of advisers conveying a singular message with varying degrees of urgency: Control your temper. Do not talk over Biden. Do not come off as angry. They discussed with him issues they believe voters would want to hear about, including the economy and the competitive threat of China, in keeping with persistent Trump campaign insinuations that any foreign contacts by anyone should be examined.

But inevitably, Trump is liable to return to the subject that most grabs him: himself, and how unfairly he feels he is being treated.

The first debate appeared to hurt his cause not simply because Trump could not resist talking over Biden. It was, more precisely, a very public window into the version of Trump that led former White House counsel Donald McGahn to call him “King Kong” — the version that aides have long argued is a figment of the news media’s hyperbolic imagination.

That initial debate spectacle underscored what some people who have known Trump for years have said privately: that his volatility and anger do not wear well on people.

In this second night of what was supposed to be a three-debate run — the president’s own coronavirus case and refusal to debate virtually doomed another — Trump was less openly hostile.

But he still made the case that five years into his career in political debates, he is a different kind of leader, hoping to run as an outsider even after four years in office.

“It’s all-talk-no-action with these politicians,” he said in one exchange.

“I’m not a typical politician,” he said in another.

He was just trying to play one on television, in moderation, for at least one night.

Before the president’s last, best chance to change the trajectory of his reelection bid, his mandate Thursday evening was at once clear and complicated: Be less like Donald Trump.

Before the president’s last, best chance to change the trajectory of his reelection bid, his mandate Thursday evening was at once clear and complicated: Be less like Donald Trump. It can be said that he tried, by his standard. He succeeded at various points in acting like the type of person he claims to disdain: a typical politician in a debate. He spoke with an inside voice while saluting his own pandemic response. He interrupted far less. He thanked the moderator for letting him chime in and did not sound sarcastic while doing so. And it is far from certain that he helped himself enough anyway. Have a look| US Election 2020: Donald Trump, Joe Biden appear for last presidential debate Swiveling all night between heeding the advice of allies who have pleaded for uncharacteristic discipline and succumbing to impulses that can still consume him as he faces down an opponent he cannot process losing to, Trump stood before the electorate a candidate in conflict at his late campaign hour. If Trump appeared to recognize that the debate represented his final mass audience less than two weeks before Election Day, he also showed the limits of even a more finely calibrated executive performance. In an election that Joe Biden’s team has sought to frame as a referendum on the incumbent, particularly his handling of the coronavirus — an endeavor that Trump has often made quite straightforward for his rival — it was the president who entered Thursday night with more work to do, given the national and battleground state surveys showing him behind. At times, his answers seemed tailored explicitly with this deficit in mind, targeted at groups with whom he must improve his standing, like seniors, whom he pledged at one point to “protect” four times in a matter of seconds. Also read| US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal' But in a moment of relentless national upheaval, manifesting in protest, public health crisis and immense financial turmoil, Trump also could not help but accentuate the most essential qualities of his tenure Thursday, reverting to fits of magical-thinking-aloud and grievance-stuffed nonrestraint. He set off on an extended meditation — most likely to resonate with only dedicated consumers of right-wing media — on whether Biden’s nickname was “the big man” as it related to his son’s business dealings. He dwelled on “the emails, the emails, the horrible emails” with conspiratorial repetition. He invoked Abraham Lincoln to praise his own contributions to Black Americans. He specked his virus defense with an aside that “we can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does,” before nodding at purportedly shadowy sources of Biden family wealth. (“He’s obviously made a lot of money someplace,” he said.) Also read| Other countries 'will pay a price': Joe Biden and Donald Trump talk about Russian interference The president’s opponents like to say there is only one Trump, and his advisers like to describe a different one: compassionate in private, they insist; altruistic in nature; brawling only when the task dictates as much. Too often — and despite his best efforts Thursday — this latter case has tended to collapse in a hail of misstatement and self-congratulation. He can resemble a chef with one dish, a golfer with one club in his bag — regardless of what the next stroke might require — and a propensity to blame his caddie for the attendant result. If voters reject him next month, this will be the chief reason: The 2020 campaign is different, and Trump is not. He still focused extensively Thursday on often unsubstantiated allegations against his opponent’s son, defying some Republican allies who have counseled that the attacks connect little beyond the conservative echo chamber where Trump is already beloved. Also read| US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal' He still made virtually no attempt to outline a comprehensive second-term agenda that might appeal to any remaining political fence-sitters — to the extent that there are many left, in an election where many millions have already voted and most others are largely set in their views, according to polling. Of course, political pliability was probably never going to be a prominent feature in a contest between two proud men in their 70s. Biden likewise demonstrated Thursday that he is very much the candidate that voters have come to know, for good or ill, across the decades: a creature of a bygone Washington, prone to throwback references, never entirely smooth. He spoke of “Bidencare” and made a curious allusion to Hitler. He strained to supply a compelling rebuttal to Trump’s charge that he has been around Washington for almost a half-century to little effect. Biden was often at his strongest pressing Trump on his stewardship during the pandemic, suggesting the president did not have the capacity to evolve in the job. Also read| US Elections 2020: I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK, says Trump on Fauci “He says we’re learning to live with it,” Biden said of the virus. “People are learning to die with it.” In an exchange about immigration, Biden highlighted the 545 children who were separated from their parents at the border, and whose parents cannot be located. “It makes us a laughingstock, and violates every notion of who we are as a nation,” Biden said. Trump’s retort was to claim the children are “well taken care of,” and then to focus on the cages that have been used to hold them. “Who built the cages, Joe?” A businessman who has long specialized in setting Houdini-like traps for himself and then trying to escape, Trump appeared mindful that this is almost certainly the last time he will ever be on a debate stage. In 2016, he managed to stay relatively disciplined for the final 10 days of the race, something his advisers have lamented since the disastrous last debate. And if he was not his most unruly self Thursday, he also remains a man who believes firmly that a refusal to modulate is part of what delivered him to his position in the first place — reason enough, supporters say, to be reminded that this race is not yet over. Also read| 'I cannot guarantee': Donald Trump backtracks on COVID-19 vaccine; Joe Biden slams his approach Through essentially his entire professional life, the president has delighted in making others adjust to his tics and whims, secure in the knowledge that if history was instructive, everything would more or less work out for him anyway. He created the impression of business success by insisting, as loudly and frequently as possible, that he was successful at business. He flattened campaign precedent with gleeful name-calling and race-baiting and was rewarded with the presidency. He faced impeachment after encouraging a foreign government to investigate a rival and was, in his estimation, thoroughly vindicated when Senate Republicans declined to expel him from office. Even the debate rules Thursday were an exercise in adapting to Trump and not the other way around: The candidates were muted for their counterpart’s opening answers to each topic, given Trump’s fire hose of interruptions the last time. Such guard rails were only ever going to curb him so much. Trump had made clear that he was going to spend a portion of the night hammering Biden over his son’s business ventures, the subject of fevered attention (and more than occasional misinformation and misleading innuendo) on the president’s favored media outlets in recent days. Also read| US Elections 2020: Quotes from Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the presidential debate The strategy presented perils for both candidates. Biden has been known to grow flustered when challenged on matters of family, lashing out not only at opponents but also at members of the news media who question whether his son Hunter leveraged the Biden name for personal gain. But there is little evidence that the approach has much helped Trump with the voters he needs: seniors, suburban women, those disinclined to share the president’s interest in the Fox News prime-time lineup. Biden is also often at his most sympathetic when discussing his personal history, rife with tragedies like the car crash that killed his first wife and baby daughter in 1972 and the death of his son Beau from brain cancer in 2015. Discussing Hunter, who has struggled with addiction, the former vice president has often appended a pointed descriptor: “my surviving son.” Trump was undeterred, as ever. For days leading up to the debate, he bypassed formal preparation but heard from a core group of advisers conveying a singular message with varying degrees of urgency: Control your temper. Do not talk over Biden. Do not come off as angry. They discussed with him issues they believe voters would want to hear about, including the economy and the competitive threat of China, in keeping with persistent Trump campaign insinuations that any foreign contacts by anyone should be examined. But inevitably, Trump is liable to return to the subject that most grabs him: himself, and how unfairly he feels he is being treated. The first debate appeared to hurt his cause not simply because Trump could not resist talking over Biden. It was, more precisely, a very public window into the version of Trump that led former White House counsel Donald McGahn to call him “King Kong” — the version that aides have long argued is a figment of the news media’s hyperbolic imagination. That initial debate spectacle underscored what some people who have known Trump for years have said privately: that his volatility and anger do not wear well on people. In this second night of what was supposed to be a three-debate run — the president’s own coronavirus case and refusal to debate virtually doomed another — Trump was less openly hostile. But he still made the case that five years into his career in political debates, he is a different kind of leader, hoping to run as an outsider even after four years in office. “It’s all-talk-no-action with these politicians,” he said in one exchange. “I’m not a typical politician,” he said in another. He was just trying to play one on television, in moderation, for at least one night.

A mandate to be less like himself? It can be said that Trump tried

Since getting tested for the novel coronavirus, Melania Trump has maintained a low profile and had cancelled all her public appearances. However, she made her first appearance since recovery on Wednesday during the final presidential debate.

Melania Trump was spotted supporting her husband and the&nbsp;current US President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;as he debated his&nbsp;Democratic rival and former Vice President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;few days before the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/us-election">US elections</a>.

The First Lady had stayed back in the White House after her diagnose, while the President had shifted to the army hospital. Her condition, reports claim, had been more stable than the President's — a reason for which&nbsp;could be her younger age, the President had joked in an address.

The debate hall also saw the presence of Donald Trump's children&nbsp;Ivanka, Tiffany and Eric who were, in a rare moment, spotted wearing face masks this time at&nbsp;the debate hall in the Belmont University in Nashville.
<img alt="Trump family spotted at the Presidential debate" data-align="right" data-caption="Donald Trump's children Ivanka, Tiffany and Eric spotted at the presidential debate." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="4060fb07-bf4b-4949-96eb-6c09daed5bb5" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Trump%20family%20in%20Presidential%20debate.jpg" />
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Jill Biden, Joe Biden's wife, was also spotted in the room who came out to support her husband. Jill, too, was wearing a face mask, like last time.&nbsp;
<img alt="Jill Biden in Presidential debate" data-align="right" data-caption="Jill Biden in Presidential debate" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="8bc932c1-a3c2-45e3-834e-5e1181adb7c2" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Jill%20Biden%20in%20Presidential%20debate.jpg" />
Many believe that the only reason the Trump family was wearing masks this time, unlike last time, was because the&nbsp;Belmont University had made it mandatory for all attendees to cover their mouths and noses. Anyone who was found without a mask would have been asked to leave the room, as per local media.

However, the Trump children, who had opted for surgical masks, were seen removing their masks as soon as they were seated in the hall. Melania Trump, who matched her mask with her black dress, also left her mask on her seat when she rose to join her husband on the stage after the debate ended. She did, however, take her mask along later. Jill Biden, however, flaunted her mask all through the debate, and also on the stage while she hugged and congratulated her husband for the last presidential debate.

Since getting tested for the novel coronavirus, Melania Trump has maintained a low profile and had cancelled all her public appearances. However, she made her first appearance since recovery on Wednesday during the final presidential debate.

Since getting tested for the novel coronavirus, Melania Trump has maintained a low profile and had cancelled all her public appearances. However, she made her first appearance since recovery on Wednesday during the final presidential debate. Melania Trump was spotted supporting her husband and the current US President Donald Trump as he debated his Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden few days before the US elections. The First Lady had stayed back in the White House after her diagnose, while the President had shifted to the army hospital. Her condition, reports claim, had been more stable than the President's — a reason for which could be her younger age, the President had joked in an address. The debate hall also saw the presence of Donald Trump's children Ivanka, Tiffany and Eric who were, in a rare moment, spotted wearing face masks this time at the debate hall in the Belmont University in Nashville. Jill Biden, Joe Biden's wife, was also spotted in the room who came out to support her husband. Jill, too, was wearing a face mask, like last time. Many believe that the only reason the Trump family was wearing masks this time, unlike last time, was because the Belmont University had made it mandatory for all attendees to cover their mouths and noses. Anyone who was found without a mask would have been asked to leave the room, as per local media. However, the Trump children, who had opted for surgical masks, were seen removing their masks as soon as they were seated in the hall. Melania Trump, who matched her mask with her black dress, also left her mask on her seat when she rose to join her husband on the stage after the debate ended. She did, however, take her mask along later. Jill Biden, however, flaunted her mask all through the debate, and also on the stage while she hugged and congratulated her husband for the last presidential debate.

US Election 2020: Melania Trump makes first public appearance since COVID-19 recovery

During the final presidential debate of the US election 2020, President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;and his Democratic rival and former Vice President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;talked about the novel coronavirus which has affected more than 7 million Americans.

Trump, for the first one, said he does not guarantee that the coronavirus vaccine will be available "soon".

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-elections-2020-i-think-hes-a-democrat-but-thats-ok-says-trump-on-fauci-337286">Also read|&nbsp;US Elections 2020: I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK, says Trump on Fauci</a>

Talking about how the coronavirus has taken more than 100,000 lives in the country, Trump said he has seen the effects of the said vaccine on himself and he is happy about it.

At first, Trump said his administration will be available within a few weeks. However, when the moderator asked if he can guarantee it, Trump backtracked and said he cannot guarantee but he hopes it will be available within a few weeks.

When asked if his timeline is realistic as the medical experts have stated that the medicine will be available only till 2021 later, and people need to use masks till then to stay safe,&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;slammed his experts saying he has the support of army and he understands the power of it more than his medical experts.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-presidential-debate-india-is-filthy-says-trump-337317">Also read|&nbsp;US Presidential Debate: India is 'filthy', says Trump</a>

Biden,&nbsp;however, said that President who has been responsible for so many deaths&nbsp;'should not remain as president'.

Trump's&nbsp;plan to fight coronavirus is mainly to wait for the vaccine, which he hopes will be available within few and the military can help in distribution.&nbsp;Biden,&nbsp;however, says he will urge people to wear masks and stay indoors as long as possible. He also guaranteed that he will not be shutting down the economy, but will come up with a thorough plan of reopening schools and business rather than rushing to reopen the institutions.

During the final presidential debate of the US election 2020, President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden talked about the novel coronavirus which has affected more than 7 million Americans.

During the final presidential debate of the US election 2020, President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden talked about the novel coronavirus which has affected more than 7 million Americans. Trump, for the first one, said he does not guarantee that the coronavirus vaccine will be available "soon". Also read| US Elections 2020: I think he's a Democrat, but that's OK, says Trump on Fauci Talking about how the coronavirus has taken more than 100,000 lives in the country, Trump said he has seen the effects of the said vaccine on himself and he is happy about it. At first, Trump said his administration will be available within a few weeks. However, when the moderator asked if he can guarantee it, Trump backtracked and said he cannot guarantee but he hopes it will be available within a few weeks. When asked if his timeline is realistic as the medical experts have stated that the medicine will be available only till 2021 later, and people need to use masks till then to stay safe, Trump slammed his experts saying he has the support of army and he understands the power of it more than his medical experts. Also read| US Presidential Debate: India is 'filthy', says Trump Biden, however, said that President who has been responsible for so many deaths 'should not remain as president'. Trump's plan to fight coronavirus is mainly to wait for the vaccine, which he hopes will be available within few and the military can help in distribution. Biden, however, says he will urge people to wear masks and stay indoors as long as possible. He also guaranteed that he will not be shutting down the economy, but will come up with a thorough plan of reopening schools and business rather than rushing to reopen the institutions.

'I cannot guarantee': Donald Trump backtracks on COVID-19 vaccine; Joe Biden slams his approach

Only 11 days are left for the presidential election in the United States and President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump </a>and Democratic nominee <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> will give one of the final and major pushes to the presidency bid when they will clash for the last presidential debate late on Thursday.

The 90-minute US election final debate will be held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Let's take a look at what all can be expected in this final US presidential debate.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/barack-obama-enters-the-field-blasts-donald-trump-in-first-us-election-rally-for-joe-biden-337016">Barack Obama enters the field, blasts Donald Trump in first US election rally for Joe Biden</a>

<h2>Mute button</h2>

After many interruptions in the first US election debate, the final debate will feature the mute button, in which one candidate will be muted when the other one is speaking in the allotted two-minute period when questions will be asked by the moderator.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-russia-obtained-voter-registration-information-says-us-intelligence-director-john-ratcliffe-337000">Iran, Russia obtained voter registration information, says US intelligence director John Ratcliffe</a> 
&nbsp;

<h2>Pressure on host?</h2>

After the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace came under a lot of criticism for unable to control the debate, with interruptions happening during the entire debate. This time's moderator Kristen Welker is already being attacked by Trump for being "terrible" and "unfair". How will Welker handle both the candidates, only time will tell.

<h2>Trump's attack and Biden's patience</h2>

In the first face-off, Trump constantly pushed and interrupted Biden, which forced the latter calling the US president "shut up". It has to be seen whether Trump will again follow a similar approach to get under the skin of Biden and if Biden can able to counter him or not.&nbsp;

Only 11 days are left for the presidential election in the United States and President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will give one of the final and major pushes to the presidency bid when they will clash for the last presidential debate late on Thursday.

Only 11 days are left for the presidential election in the United States and President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will give one of the final and major pushes to the presidency bid when they will clash for the last presidential debate late on Thursday. The 90-minute US election final debate will be held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Let's take a look at what all can be expected in this final US presidential debate. Also read | Barack Obama enters the field, blasts Donald Trump in first US election rally for Joe Biden Mute button After many interruptions in the first US election debate, the final debate will feature the mute button, in which one candidate will be muted when the other one is speaking in the allotted two-minute period when questions will be asked by the moderator. Also read | Iran, Russia obtained voter registration information, says US intelligence director John Ratcliffe Pressure on host? After the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace came under a lot of criticism for unable to control the debate, with interruptions happening during the entire debate. This time's moderator Kristen Welker is already being attacked by Trump for being "terrible" and "unfair". How will Welker handle both the candidates, only time will tell. Trump's attack and Biden's patience In the first face-off, Trump constantly pushed and interrupted Biden, which forced the latter calling the US president "shut up". It has to be seen whether Trump will again follow a similar approach to get under the skin of Biden and if Biden can able to counter him or not.

US election 2020: What to expect as Donald Trump, Joe Biden gear up for final debate

Donald Trump has said that he will "do plenty" with China if he is re-elected for a second term, as the US president once again went on the offensive against Beijing over the COVID-19 pandemic. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/europe-wonders-if-it-can-rely-on-us-again-whoever-wins-337232">Also read | Europe wonders if it can rely on US again, whoever wins</a> 
 
"Well, we're going to do plenty with China. What they did to us is a disgrace," Trump said during a media appearance published by the Sinclair Broadcast Group on Wednesday evening.

"You're sitting there with that mask because of China, OK? It's disgraceful. It's a total disgrace, but you will find out," Trump told the interviewer.

Trump has time and again called COVID-19 the "China Virus", and his administration has urged the World Health Organization and other international bodies to take strong action after China became the first epicentre of the disease at the end of the past year.

Meanwhile, In a fresh step in its confrontation with China, the US has designated operations of six China-based media companies as foreign missions. Such a designation requires the outlets to inform the US State Department of their personnel rosters and real-estate holdings. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the fresh step was taken to resist communist propaganda. Pompeo also said that the US is going to start a dialogue with the European Union on China.

The United States also said last month it would require senior Chinese diplomats to get State Department approval before visiting U.S. university campuses or holding cultural events with more than 50 people outside mission grounds.

The incumbent president is set to face off against Democrat candidate Joe Biden on November 3.

(With inputs from agencies)

Donald Trump has said that he will "do plenty" with China if he is re-elected for a second term, as the US president once again went on the offensive against Beijing over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Donald Trump has said that he will "do plenty" with China if he is re-elected for a second term, as the US president once again went on the offensive against Beijing over the COVID-19 pandemic. Also read | Europe wonders if it can rely on US again, whoever wins "Well, we're going to do plenty with China. What they did to us is a disgrace," Trump said during a media appearance published by the Sinclair Broadcast Group on Wednesday evening. "You're sitting there with that mask because of China, OK? It's disgraceful. It's a total disgrace, but you will find out," Trump told the interviewer. Trump has time and again called COVID-19 the "China Virus", and his administration has urged the World Health Organization and other international bodies to take strong action after China became the first epicentre of the disease at the end of the past year. Meanwhile, In a fresh step in its confrontation with China, the US has designated operations of six China-based media companies as foreign missions. Such a designation requires the outlets to inform the US State Department of their personnel rosters and real-estate holdings. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the fresh step was taken to resist communist propaganda. Pompeo also said that the US is going to start a dialogue with the European Union on China. The United States also said last month it would require senior Chinese diplomats to get State Department approval before visiting U.S. university campuses or holding cultural events with more than 50 people outside mission grounds. The incumbent president is set to face off against Democrat candidate Joe Biden on November 3. (With inputs from agencies)

US election 2020: Trump warns of action against China if he is re-elected

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/will-not-give-up-cartoons-teens-charged-over-teachers-beheading-in-france-336999">'Will not give up cartoons': Teens charged over teacher's beheading in France</a>

<img alt="Beheading in France" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="74907e09-8d92-4b49-ad4f-6dff1f584839" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Behead.jpg" />

According to the prosecutor, the killer had offered students in school around $350 to $415 to identify the teacher.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/barack-obama-blasts-donald-trump-in-first-us-elections-rally-for-joe-biden-337016">Barack Obama blasts Donald Trump in first US elections rally for Joe Biden</a>

<img alt="Barack Obama" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="f69ec48b-f472-45a3-a2db-5507f715ade4" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Barack.jpg" />

Obama, who governed for two terms and remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, blasted Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pope-francis-backs-civil-union-laws-for-same-sex-couples-337010">Pope Francis backs civil union laws for same-sex couples</a>

<img alt="Pope" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e5abf8bb-1b33-46bf-abbf-5c4cab4c86b5" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Pope1.jpg" />

According to reports, Francis, when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had opposed legislation to approve same-sex marriages but had supported legal protection for the rights of gay couples.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-russia-obtained-voter-registration-information-says-us-intelligence-director-john-ratcliffe-337000">Iran, Russia obtained voter registration information, says US intelligence director John Ratcliffe</a>

<img alt="Trump" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="cb9b3b35-198f-4aff-89e5-3a2c9915bc15" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/TrumpP.jpg" />

FBI Director Christopher Wray who was present with Ratcliffe asserted that US election systems was&nbsp;"safe" and "resilient".

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-were-9-south-koreans-killed-by-a-flu-vaccine-shot-336997">Watch:&nbsp;Gravitas: Were 9 South Koreans killed by a flu vaccine shot?</a>

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-were-9-south-koreans-killed-by-a-flu-vaccine-shot-336997/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

'Will not give up cartoons': Teens charged over teacher's beheading in France According to the prosecutor, the killer had offered students in school around $350 to $415 to identify the teacher.

'Will not give up cartoons': Teens charged over teacher's beheading in France According to the prosecutor, the killer had offered students in school around $350 to $415 to identify the teacher. Barack Obama blasts Donald Trump in first US elections rally for Joe Biden Obama, who governed for two terms and remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, blasted Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic Pope Francis backs civil union laws for same-sex couples According to reports, Francis, when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had opposed legislation to approve same-sex marriages but had supported legal protection for the rights of gay couples. Iran, Russia obtained voter registration information, says US intelligence director John Ratcliffe FBI Director Christopher Wray who was present with Ratcliffe asserted that US election systems was "safe" and "resilient". Watch: Gravitas: Were 9 South Koreans killed by a flu vaccine shot?

Morning news brief: Teens charged in France beheading case, Pope Francis on same-sex couples & more

The big guns are out! We are less than two weeks ahead of US Presidential Elections 2020 and the race is heating up. Big political stars from both sides are coming out. On Wednesday it was the time for Democratic Party to finally bring their ace general to the field. Former US President Barack Obama blasted Donald Trump as he took to stage for his former colleague and now Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden.

"This is not a reality show. This is reality," Obama said in a nod to Trump's past as a reality TV host. "And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.”

Obama was speaking at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump are not just two political figures at the opposite ends of US political spectrum. They have not been observed to&nbsp;share good vibes when&nbsp;they were&nbsp;around each other. It has even been evident in their body language. The photograph of the frosty handshake between the two when Trump called on President Obama after getting elected has been stuff of legends.

"With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day," Obama said at Philadelphia rally.&nbsp;

<img alt="Barack Obama at Philadelphia rally" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="d7dc8b63-38b2-4496-9252-9eff51b830e9" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/000_8TK9T4.jpg" />

"And that’s worth a lot. You’re not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won’t be so exhausting,” he added.

Obama, who governed for two terms and remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, blasted Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the president himself had fallen victim to the virus.

"Donald Trump isn't suddenly going to protect all of us," he said. "He can't even take the basic steps to protect himself."

"This is not a reality show. This is reality," Obama said in a nod to Trump's past as a reality TV host. "And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.”

Obama's appearance filled a gap left by Biden, who has stayed at home in Delaware since Monday for meetings and preparation ahead of his Thursday debate with Trump in Nashville, Tennessee.

<img alt="Barack Obama at Philadelphia rally" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="2cc1c3ac-745a-472e-910d-7fa688d64665" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/000_8TK9RW.jpg" />

The drive-in rally was held in the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park, the baseball stadium in Philadelphia, the city's skyline visible in the distance. With nearly 280 vehicles spread throughout the lot, it was the largest event of its kind that the Biden campaign has staged during the pandemic.

Edge

With a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing Biden with just a 4-percentage-point edge in Pennsylvania, Obama warned Democrats against complacency.

"We've got to turn out like never before," he said. "We cannot leave any doubt in this election."

Americans are voting early at a record pace this year, with more than 42 million ballots cast both via mail and in person ahead of Nov. 3 Election Day on concerns about the coronavirus and to make sure their votes are counted.

<img alt="Barack Obama at Philadelphia rally" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e14aa609-1ac2-442b-a249-8f72484fca5a" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/000_8TK9TA.jpg" />

The early vote so far represents about 30% of the total ballots cast in 2016, according to the University of Florida's U.S. Elections Project.

Four years ago, Obama participated in a rally in Philadelphia with then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the day before the election, only to see Trump narrowly take the state. The Biden campaign considers winning there a top priority.

In remarks at an evening rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump briefly mentioned Obama, noting that he had supported Clinton in her losing effort. "It was nobody who campaigned harder for Crooked Hillary than Obama, right?"

North Carolina is another battleground state where opinion polls show a tight race. Harris was also in the state on Wednesday to mobilize voters in Asheville and Charlotte.

US election 2020: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-can-barack-obama-be-elected-as-joe-bidens-vice-president-336947">Can Barack Obama be elected as Joe Biden's Vice President?</a>

Obama won North Carolina in 2008, but lost it in his 2012 campaign. Trump won it in 2016.

Trump argued that coronavirus-related restrictions were harming the state's economy and complained that Democrats and the news media were overly pre-occupied with the pandemic.

"All you hear is covid, covid," the president said. "That's all they put on because they want to scare the hell out of everyone."

Top&nbsp;ally

Even though Wednesday marked Obama's 2020 campaign debut, his support has been essential for Biden. He has appeared at joint fundraisers with Biden and Harris, and his network of well-connected former aides has been instrumental in helping the campaign outpace Trump in bringing in donations.

Biden's team said Obama would campaign in Miami on Saturday for the Democratic ticket.

The last days of campaigning are taking place during a surge in cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations in battleground states, including North Carolina and Pennsylvania but also Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan.

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&nbsp;

Pennsylvania has averaged 1,500 new cases a day over the past week, a level it has not seen since April, according to a Reuters analysis. North Carolina is averaging 2,000 new cases a day over the past week, its highest level yet. The virus has killed more than 221,000 people in the United States.

Polling shows a majority of voters are disappointed in the way Trump has handled the pandemic, which he has repeatedly said would disappear on its own.

Biden and Trump are scheduled to meet in their second and final debate on Thursday night, giving the Republican an opportunity to change the trajectory of a race that Biden is leading in national opinion polls.

(With Reuters input)

The big guns are out! We are less than two weeks ahead of US Presidential Elections 2020 and the race is heating up. Big political stars from both sides are coming out.

The big guns are out! We are less than two weeks ahead of US Presidential Elections 2020 and the race is heating up. Big political stars from both sides are coming out. On Wednesday it was the time for Democratic Party to finally bring their ace general to the field. Former US President Barack Obama blasted Donald Trump as he took to stage for his former colleague and now Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden. "This is not a reality show. This is reality," Obama said in a nod to Trump's past as a reality TV host. "And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.” Obama was speaking at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia. Barack Obama and Donald Trump are not just two political figures at the opposite ends of US political spectrum. They have not been observed to share good vibes when they were around each other. It has even been evident in their body language. The photograph of the frosty handshake between the two when Trump called on President Obama after getting elected has been stuff of legends. "With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day," Obama said at Philadelphia rally. "And that’s worth a lot. You’re not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won’t be so exhausting,” he added. Obama, who governed for two terms and remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, blasted Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the president himself had fallen victim to the virus. "Donald Trump isn't suddenly going to protect all of us," he said. "He can't even take the basic steps to protect himself." "This is not a reality show. This is reality," Obama said in a nod to Trump's past as a reality TV host. "And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.” Obama's appearance filled a gap left by Biden, who has stayed at home in Delaware since Monday for meetings and preparation ahead of his Thursday debate with Trump in Nashville, Tennessee. The drive-in rally was held in the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park, the baseball stadium in Philadelphia, the city's skyline visible in the distance. With nearly 280 vehicles spread throughout the lot, it was the largest event of its kind that the Biden campaign has staged during the pandemic. Edge With a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing Biden with just a 4-percentage-point edge in Pennsylvania, Obama warned Democrats against complacency. "We've got to turn out like never before," he said. "We cannot leave any doubt in this election." Americans are voting early at a record pace this year, with more than 42 million ballots cast both via mail and in person ahead of Nov. 3 Election Day on concerns about the coronavirus and to make sure their votes are counted. The early vote so far represents about 30% of the total ballots cast in 2016, according to the University of Florida's U.S. Elections Project. Four years ago, Obama participated in a rally in Philadelphia with then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the day before the election, only to see Trump narrowly take the state. The Biden campaign considers winning there a top priority. In remarks at an evening rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump briefly mentioned Obama, noting that he had supported Clinton in her losing effort. "It was nobody who campaigned harder for Crooked Hillary than Obama, right?" North Carolina is another battleground state where opinion polls show a tight race. Harris was also in the state on Wednesday to mobilize voters in Asheville and Charlotte. US election 2020: Can Barack Obama be elected as Joe Biden's Vice President? Obama won North Carolina in 2008, but lost it in his 2012 campaign. Trump won it in 2016. Trump argued that coronavirus-related restrictions were harming the state's economy and complained that Democrats and the news media were overly pre-occupied with the pandemic. "All you hear is covid, covid," the president said. "That's all they put on because they want to scare the hell out of everyone." Top ally Even though Wednesday marked Obama's 2020 campaign debut, his support has been essential for Biden. He has appeared at joint fundraisers with Biden and Harris, and his network of well-connected former aides has been instrumental in helping the campaign outpace Trump in bringing in donations. Biden's team said Obama would campaign in Miami on Saturday for the Democratic ticket. The last days of campaigning are taking place during a surge in cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations in battleground states, including North Carolina and Pennsylvania but also Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. × Pennsylvania has averaged 1,500 new cases a day over the past week, a level it has not seen since April, according to a Reuters analysis. North Carolina is averaging 2,000 new cases a day over the past week, its highest level yet. The virus has killed more than 221,000 people in the United States. Polling shows a majority of voters are disappointed in the way Trump has handled the pandemic, which he has repeatedly said would disappear on its own. Biden and Trump are scheduled to meet in their second and final debate on Thursday night, giving the Republican an opportunity to change the trajectory of a race that Biden is leading in national opinion polls. (With Reuters input)

Barack Obama enters the field, blasts Donald Trump in first US election rally for Joe Biden

Academy winning actress Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she used to be a Republican but Donald Trump changed everything and now she no longer supports the party. 
 
Lawrence recently appeared in a podcast, where she got candid about her political views. ''It’s extremely hard to talk about politics, you don’t want to… I grew up Republican. I voted for John McCain. I was a little Republican. I based my politics on the things I grew up with," she said.&nbsp;

In pics:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/photos/donald-trump-vs-joe-biden-which-celebrity-is-backing-whom-in-the-us-presidential-elections-333505" hreflang="en">Donald Trump Vs Joe Biden: Which celebrity is backing whom in the US presidential elections</a> 
 
''I was fortunate to grow up in a Republican house where I could see the fiscal benefits of some of the Republican policies and I could also see that the social issues weren’t in line with my views,” she explained. 
 
Earlier this month, Jennifer publicly endorsed for the Democratic nominee for US election 2020 Joe Biden and his running mate Kamal Harris. Explaining how Trump changed everything, Lawrence said, ''But then for me when Donald Trump got elected, that just changed everything. 'Because this is an impeached president who has broken many laws and has refused to condemn white supremacy. It feels like there's been a line drawn in the sand. ... I don’t think it’s right. It just changes things for me.''

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/entertainment/robert-downey-jr-and-mark-ruffalo-speak-in-support-of-fellow-avenger-chris-pratt-after-he-is-voted-as-the-worst-chris-in-an-online-poll-336863" hreflang="en">Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo back Chris Pratt after he is voted as the 'worst Chris' in an online poll</a> 
 
''I’m voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this year because Donald Trump has and will continue to put himself before the safety and well-being of America, '' she had said earlier.

Academy winning actress Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she used to be a Republican but Donald Trump changed everything and now she no longer supports the party.

Academy winning actress Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she used to be a Republican but Donald Trump changed everything and now she no longer supports the party. Lawrence recently appeared in a podcast, where she got candid about her political views. ''It’s extremely hard to talk about politics, you don’t want to… I grew up Republican. I voted for John McCain. I was a little Republican. I based my politics on the things I grew up with," she said. In pics: Donald Trump Vs Joe Biden: Which celebrity is backing whom in the US presidential elections ''I was fortunate to grow up in a Republican house where I could see the fiscal benefits of some of the Republican policies and I could also see that the social issues weren’t in line with my views,” she explained. Earlier this month, Jennifer publicly endorsed for the Democratic nominee for US election 2020 Joe Biden and his running mate Kamal Harris. Explaining how Trump changed everything, Lawrence said, ''But then for me when Donald Trump got elected, that just changed everything. 'Because this is an impeached president who has broken many laws and has refused to condemn white supremacy. It feels like there's been a line drawn in the sand. ... I don’t think it’s right. It just changes things for me.'' Also read: Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo back Chris Pratt after he is voted as the 'worst Chris' in an online poll ''I’m voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this year because Donald Trump has and will continue to put himself before the safety and well-being of America, '' she had said earlier.

Jennifer Lawrence reveals she was a Republican but Donald Trump changed everything

Treated with contempt by President Donald Trump, who considers them rivals and deadbeats instead of allies, many European leaders look forward to the possibility of a Biden presidency. But they are painfully aware that four years of Trump have changed the world — and the United States — in ways that will not be easily reversed.

Even if civility can be restored, a fundamental trust has been broken, and many European diplomats and experts believe that US&nbsp;foreign policy is no longer bipartisan, so is no longer reliable. “The shining city on the hill is not as shining as it used to be,” Reinhard Bütikofer, a prominent German member of the European Parliament, put it bluntly.

For the first time, said Ivan Krastev, director of the Center for Liberal Strategies, “Europeans are afraid that there is no longer a foreign-policy consensus in the United States. Every new administration can mean a totally new policy, and for them, this is a nightmare.”

The ideological divide will be on display Thursday when Trump and Joe Biden are scheduled to hold their final presidential debate.

There will be what most consider low-hanging fruit for a Biden administration that will please Europeans. The crop includes an extension to New START, the nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, and returns to the Paris climate accord, the World Health Organization, and even the Iran nuclear accord. There will be feel-good meetings and statements about multilateralism, less confrontation about trade, renewed efforts to reform the World Trade Organization, and a less combative atmosphere at summits of the Group of 7 and NATO.

But Trump’s complaints are shared by many Americans, and given the polarization in America, President Emmanuel Macron of France has pushed Europe to step up in an altered world, where China is rising and the Trump administration is only a symptom of a US&nbsp;retreat from global leadership, not the cause.

The idea of European “strategic autonomy” — of a Europe less dependent on Washington and with its own strong voice in the world — has been gaining ground, even if it is more aspiration than reality.

Some, like Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute of International Affairs, and François Heisbourg, a French security analyst, fear that a Biden presidency could short-circuit European autonomy and let Europeans continue, as Tocci said, “sticking our heads in the sand.”

Trump's re-election, of course, might accelerate the trend toward autonomy, even if few believe that Trump would be able to pull out of NATO, as one of his former national security advisers, John Bolton, suggested he might.

US&nbsp;foreign policy was traditionally bipartisan — the old phrase that “politics stops at the water’s edge” had merit, especially during the Cold War. But the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that foreign policy, too, was subject to deepening political polarization in the United States.

“There is an incredible decay in Europe of the sense of the United States as a leader,” accelerated and symbolized by mishandling of the coronavirus, said Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Biden doesn’t solve their America problem,” he said. “He’s not going to be president forever, and Democrats won’t always be in power, and people have learned that the US&nbsp;can’t be trusted on foreign policy because the next administration will come in and wipe it away.”

The inconsistency of US&nbsp;foreign policy has undermined US&nbsp;credibility, some warned.

There is “an American decline in geopolitical weight,” said Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University.

“The single fact that shapes the US&nbsp;role in global politics is polarization, and this polarization will not disappear if Joe Biden is elected,” he said. “Americans simply don’t agree with one another on basic premises, even on how much America should be involved in global affairs and NATO.”

William J. Burns, a former senior US&nbsp;diplomat who now runs the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, thinks the damage is lasting, no matter who wins the election.

“One of the more insidious effects of polarization is to make foreign policy a tool of partisan politics,” he said. “It’s done enduring damage to America’s reputation in the world for being able to keep its word.”

While Europeans would see a Biden presidency “as a return to civilization,” as Heisbourg called it, a new partnership would come with demands for new obligations and commitments, especially in China.

After Trump, however, there would also be a new wariness and unwillingness to take big risks on the part of America’s allies, said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “If you know that whatever you’re doing will at most last until the next election, you look at everything in a more contingent way,” he said.

Europeans see US&nbsp;confrontation with China as one of the few bipartisan issues that are driving US&nbsp;foreign policy, and Europeans are reluctant to be made a pawn or a playing card in that rivalry, given that China is Europe’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States.

Opinion polls show that most Europeans do not want to take sides in some battle between Washington and Beijing. “We don’t see the China challenge the same way and we’re not the peer competitor,” said Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute.

There will also be continued pressure from Washington on Europeans to spend more on defense — one bipartisan demand that has not fractured.

Trump successfully goaded the Europeans to spend more. But Europeans were also reacting to a vacuum in trans-Atlantic leadership, doubts about Trump’s commitment to collective security, and his view of Europe as a burden and a competitor.

“I see European partners more assertive in saying that we disagree with US&nbsp;policies — that’s the healthier legacy left by Trump,” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, director of the German Marshall Fund in Paris.

Before Trump, those disagreements were rarely fundamental. “We had differences, but there was never a basic mistrust about having common views of the world,” said Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, who has dealt with numerous American presidents of both parties.

But over the past four years, she said, several European leaders “no longer take for granted that they can trust the US, even on basic things.”

Confidence in Washington will not return quickly, she said. “While most European leaders think it best for the global system to build on a close US-Europe relationship,” she said, “to have such a polarized situation between the two main parties in the US&nbsp;is scary, and you wonder where that goes.”

For Burns of the Carnegie Endowment, US&nbsp;global hegemony is over. He sees little US&nbsp;appetite “for grand foreign-policy crusades” and says: “We cannot return to 1949 or 1992 — or even 2016. The world has changed, and the trans-Atlantic relationship must change with it.”

A Biden administration would first concentrate on domestic renewal in a country clobbered by the coronavirus, he said. It would seek a more collaborative partnership with Europe, supporting “a European security identity that doesn’t come at the expense of NATO.”

The Europeans have “their own skepticism, given the drift they’ve seen in a more inward-looking America,” Burns said. But workable coalitions are possible on China, 5G, Russia, Africa, and climate change.

But Europeans must commit, too, Burns said. “Both sides must step up to invest in a new relationship, which they haven’t always done in the past.”

Treated with contempt by President Donald Trump, who considers them rivals and deadbeats instead of allies, many European leaders look forward to the possibility of a Biden presidency.

Treated with contempt by President Donald Trump, who considers them rivals and deadbeats instead of allies, many European leaders look forward to the possibility of a Biden presidency. But they are painfully aware that four years of Trump have changed the world — and the United States — in ways that will not be easily reversed. Even if civility can be restored, a fundamental trust has been broken, and many European diplomats and experts believe that US foreign policy is no longer bipartisan, so is no longer reliable. “The shining city on the hill is not as shining as it used to be,” Reinhard Bütikofer, a prominent German member of the European Parliament, put it bluntly. For the first time, said Ivan Krastev, director of the Center for Liberal Strategies, “Europeans are afraid that there is no longer a foreign-policy consensus in the United States. Every new administration can mean a totally new policy, and for them, this is a nightmare.” The ideological divide will be on display Thursday when Trump and Joe Biden are scheduled to hold their final presidential debate. There will be what most consider low-hanging fruit for a Biden administration that will please Europeans. The crop includes an extension to New START, the nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, and returns to the Paris climate accord, the World Health Organization, and even the Iran nuclear accord. There will be feel-good meetings and statements about multilateralism, less confrontation about trade, renewed efforts to reform the World Trade Organization, and a less combative atmosphere at summits of the Group of 7 and NATO. But Trump’s complaints are shared by many Americans, and given the polarization in America, President Emmanuel Macron of France has pushed Europe to step up in an altered world, where China is rising and the Trump administration is only a symptom of a US retreat from global leadership, not the cause. The idea of European “strategic autonomy” — of a Europe less dependent on Washington and with its own strong voice in the world — has been gaining ground, even if it is more aspiration than reality. Some, like Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute of International Affairs, and François Heisbourg, a French security analyst, fear that a Biden presidency could short-circuit European autonomy and let Europeans continue, as Tocci said, “sticking our heads in the sand.” Trump's re-election, of course, might accelerate the trend toward autonomy, even if few believe that Trump would be able to pull out of NATO, as one of his former national security advisers, John Bolton, suggested he might. US foreign policy was traditionally bipartisan — the old phrase that “politics stops at the water’s edge” had merit, especially during the Cold War. But the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that foreign policy, too, was subject to deepening political polarization in the United States. “There is an incredible decay in Europe of the sense of the United States as a leader,” accelerated and symbolized by mishandling of the coronavirus, said Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Biden doesn’t solve their America problem,” he said. “He’s not going to be president forever, and Democrats won’t always be in power, and people have learned that the US can’t be trusted on foreign policy because the next administration will come in and wipe it away.” The inconsistency of US foreign policy has undermined US credibility, some warned. There is “an American decline in geopolitical weight,” said Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University. “The single fact that shapes the US role in global politics is polarization, and this polarization will not disappear if Joe Biden is elected,” he said. “Americans simply don’t agree with one another on basic premises, even on how much America should be involved in global affairs and NATO.” William J. Burns, a former senior US diplomat who now runs the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, thinks the damage is lasting, no matter who wins the election. “One of the more insidious effects of polarization is to make foreign policy a tool of partisan politics,” he said. “It’s done enduring damage to America’s reputation in the world for being able to keep its word.” While Europeans would see a Biden presidency “as a return to civilization,” as Heisbourg called it, a new partnership would come with demands for new obligations and commitments, especially in China. After Trump, however, there would also be a new wariness and unwillingness to take big risks on the part of America’s allies, said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “If you know that whatever you’re doing will at most last until the next election, you look at everything in a more contingent way,” he said. Europeans see US confrontation with China as one of the few bipartisan issues that are driving US foreign policy, and Europeans are reluctant to be made a pawn or a playing card in that rivalry, given that China is Europe’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States. Opinion polls show that most Europeans do not want to take sides in some battle between Washington and Beijing. “We don’t see the China challenge the same way and we’re not the peer competitor,” said Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute. There will also be continued pressure from Washington on Europeans to spend more on defense — one bipartisan demand that has not fractured. Trump successfully goaded the Europeans to spend more. But Europeans were also reacting to a vacuum in trans-Atlantic leadership, doubts about Trump’s commitment to collective security, and his view of Europe as a burden and a competitor. “I see European partners more assertive in saying that we disagree with US policies — that’s the healthier legacy left by Trump,” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, director of the German Marshall Fund in Paris. Before Trump, those disagreements were rarely fundamental. “We had differences, but there was never a basic mistrust about having common views of the world,” said Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, who has dealt with numerous American presidents of both parties. But over the past four years, she said, several European leaders “no longer take for granted that they can trust the US, even on basic things.” Confidence in Washington will not return quickly, she said. “While most European leaders think it best for the global system to build on a close US-Europe relationship,” she said, “to have such a polarized situation between the two main parties in the US is scary, and you wonder where that goes.” For Burns of the Carnegie Endowment, US global hegemony is over. He sees little US appetite “for grand foreign-policy crusades” and says: “We cannot return to 1949 or 1992 — or even 2016. The world has changed, and the trans-Atlantic relationship must change with it.” A Biden administration would first concentrate on domestic renewal in a country clobbered by the coronavirus, he said. It would seek a more collaborative partnership with Europe, supporting “a European security identity that doesn’t come at the expense of NATO.” The Europeans have “their own skepticism, given the drift they’ve seen in a more inward-looking America,” Burns said. But workable coalitions are possible on China, 5G, Russia, Africa, and climate change. But Europeans must commit, too, Burns said. “Both sides must step up to invest in a new relationship, which they haven’t always done in the past.”

Europe wonders if it can rely on US again, whoever wins

US election 2020: Who is Kristen Welker, moderator of last presidential debate?

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