Conservatives pummeled former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday for saying he wanted to transition away from the oil industry, accusing the Democratic nominee of being callous with the economy in his proposals for tackling climate change.

“I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Biden said during the final presidential debate.

“Oh. There’s a big statement,” President Donald Trump responded.

“It is a big statement,” Biden shot back.

Read More »

Live Updates: Presidential Debates

Biden checks watch to see how much time remains in debate

The moment evoked George H.W. Bush’s glance at his timepiece during a 1992 debate.

When it came time to how much time remained in the last presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden’s approach was trust, but verify.

When moderator Kristen Welker of NBC told the candidates Thursday night “we're running out of time,” Biden took a long look at his wrist watch to confirm that only about 10 minutes remained in the debate.

The visual was reminiscent of a moment in the 1992 town hall debate between Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and George H.W. Bush, when Bush checked his watch while Clinton answered a question from an audience member.

Bush was criticized at the time for peeking at his watch, with observers saying he appeared bored with the questions raised by voters.

President Donald Trump on Thursday night accused Joe Biden of incompetence, saying he decided to run for office because of his opponent’s poor performance as vice president.

As the two candidates spoke about racial injustice across the country, Trump tried to sow doubt about Biden’s ability to get the job done by pointing out that he wasn’t able to change the justice system as vice president. Following Biden’s promises for reform, Trump asked, “But why didn't he do it four years ago?”

“I ran because of you,” Trump told Biden. “If I thought you did a good job, I never would have run.”

Biden, however, embraced the dynamic as he turned to the audience.

Read More »

Joe Biden remarked on Thursday night that Donald Trump has “a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn,” condemning the president’s racist and incendiary rhetoric.

“Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history,” Biden said. “He pours fuel on every single racist fire. Every single one.”

The attack from the Democratic nominee came after Trump again argued that he had done more for African Americans than any of his predecessors, with the “possible exception” of Lincoln.

Trump also criticized Biden for his role in helping craft the 1994 crime bill, and repeatedly claimed that he was the “least racist person” inside the debate hall at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

Read More »

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he and former President Barack Obama “made a mistake” because they did not achieve comprehensive immigration reform during their administration.

The remark came after President Donald Trump on Thursday night defended his administration’s policy of separating families at the border — a move that has been deeply criticized and was reversed in 2018. The parents of more than 500 children separated under that policy cannot be found.

During the debate, however, Trump went after Biden and Obama for creating detention facilities for undocumented immigrants in the first place.

“Who made the cages, Joe,” Trump said.

Read More »

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday sparred over whether raising the minimum wage would help or hurt small businesses.

Biden said he supported raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, adding that the government was going to have to bail out small businesses struggling because of the pandemic.

Asked whether he supported raising the minimum wage now despite the challenges small businesses face, Biden responded: “I do, because I think one of the things we're going to have to do we're going to have to bail them out, too. We should be bailing them out now, those small businesses. You've got one in six of them going under. They're not going to be able to make it back.”

But Trump, who said he would consider raising the minimum wage if he wins a second term, challenged him, saying that raising the minimum wage would not help business owners who are fighting to keep the doors open.

Read More »

Live Updates: Presidential Debates

Biden slams Trump for his friendship with Kim Jong Un

The former vice president invoked Adolf Hilter in his remarks.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump for touting his friendly relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Trump, who met with Kim several times in 2018 and 2019, said his friendship with the North Korean leader has helped keep peace in the region. He compared his relationship with North Korea to that of President Barack Obama’s, saying that the former president had grave concerns about a nuclear war with the country before passing on the presidency.

“North Korea, we're not in a war. We have a good relationship,” Trump said at Thursday night's debate.

Biden didn’t mince his words in his reply. “That's like saying we had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded … the rest of Europe. Come on."

Read More »

Joe Biden on Thursday night invoked the term Bidencare when discussing his plans to build upon the Affordable Care Act, signaling his intention to rebrand former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

“What I’m going to do is pass Obamacare with a public option, become Bidencare,” the Democratic nominee said.

Biden has long opposed a total government takeover of the American health care system. In the 2020 Democratic primary, he bested more-progressive opponents, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who advocated Medicare for All.

Biden’s remarks at the final presidential debate came after President Donald Trump acknowledged that he was seeking to “terminate” Obamacare while promising to “come up with a brand new, beautiful health care” plan. But over the past four years, the White House and congressional Republicans have failed to put forth a comprehensive replacement.

President Donald Trump said he had prepaid millions in taxes to explain why documents reported by the New York Times showed he had only paid $750 in federal income tax in 2016.

“Deep down in the IRS, they treat me horribly,” Trump said at Thursday night's presidential debate. “We made a deal. It was all settled until I decided to run for president. I get treated very badly by the IRS. Very unfairly.

"But we had a deal all done. As soon as we're completed with the deal — I want to release it. But I have paid millions and millions of dollars. And it's worse than paying. I paid in advance. It's called prepaying your taxes.”

However, it wasn’t immediately clear what Trump meant when he said he paid in advance. Many people do make estimated tax payments to the IRS periodically during the year.

Read More »

Live Updates: Presidential Debates

Trump defends his Chinese bank account

The president said he closed his reported overseas accounts before running for office.

President Donald Trump defended himself during Thursday’s debate after a New York Timesreport revealed that he had a bank account in China and had paid taxes in that country.

“I have many bank accounts and they're all listed and they're all over the place,” Trump said. “I was a businessman doing business.”

Trump said that his bank account in China was from 2013 and that he closed it in 2015 just before running for president. Moderator Kristen Welker pointed out that Trump has not divested from his businesses since taking office and has often continued to promote his businesses.

Trump has repeatedly gone after Joe Biden by alleging his family improperly financially benefited from his vice presidency, including profitable business deals in China. Biden has frequently denied the allegations. The two candidates engaged in an exchange, each accusing the other of accepting money from foreign entities.

LIVE UPDATES: PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

Biden issues a pre-emptive strike on Giuliani, opening the door to Trump

"He's being used as a Russian pawn," Biden said.

For all the anticipation about how President Donald Trump would deploy Hunter Biden's business deals in the debate, it was Joe Biden who became the first to raise Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading the effort to dig up dirt on the Bidens.

"He's being used as a Russian pawn," Biden said, after name-checking Rudy and describing him as Trump's "buddy." "He's being fed information that's not true."

Biden was referring to Giuliani's meeting in December in 2019 with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker assessed by the U.S. government to be a Russian agent.

The exchange allowed Trump to raise a series of allegations about Hunter that have aired in conservative media outlets in recent days -- leading to a full-throated denial from Biden.

Read More »

Joe Biden warned at Thursday night’s presidential debate that the U.S. was “about to go into a dark winter,” echoing the concerns of public health experts who caution about increased daily Covid-19 case counts converging with the annual flu season.

“We’re about to go into a dark winter. A dark winter,” Biden said. “And he has no clear plan, and there’s no prospect that there’s going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American people before the middle of next year.”

Biden’s remarks came after President Donald Trump offered a rosy, unrealistic timeline for vaccine distribution. Responding to the Democratic nominee, the president said: “I don’t know if we’re going to have a dark winter at all. We’re opening up our country. We’ve learned and studied and understand the disease, which we didn’t at the beginning.”

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, previously predicted in July that “the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be probably one of the most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health.”

Read More »

Everyone in Thursday's debate audience will be required to wear masks and will be asked to leave if they refuse to comply, said Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates.

That’s a departure from the first presidential debate, when several members of Trump’s family removed their masks after taking their seats, even though debate organizers had nominally required them. Organizers and the Trump family alike were criticized for seemingly lax mask enforcement.

Stricter mask enforcement was a feature of the vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris two weeks ago. Members of that audience could be seen with their masks on throughout the debate.

Trump, Biden and moderator Kristen Welker did not wear masks and were set up to be more than 12 feet apart from each other. The audience also had to follow social distancing requirements, with several seats intentionally left empty.

2020 debates

Trump came out strong. But is it too late?

In their last face-off before the election, Donald Trump tried to flip the script on Joe Biden and avoid controversy.

Had Donald Trump debated three weeks ago the way he did Thursday, he might be in a better place.

His defense of his handling of the pandemic was cogent. He aligned himself with the public health experts he’s previously attacked. He took credit for a robust stock market.

But there was no winning this debate — not 12 days out from an election in which 47 million people have already voted and the number of people who say they’re undecided is roughly equal to the number of people who lie.

Instead, the final 2020 debate functioned largely as one last, 90-minute distillation of everything that has burned Trump all year.

Read More »