Second Presidential Debate, Oct. 22, 2020, 1080p
Duration: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes

Presidential debate:
Key takeaways from the Trump-Biden showdown
by Anthony Zurcher, https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54650681

The mute button, or at least the threat of it, seemed to work. In the second
presidential debate, Donald Trump and Joe Biden candidates were more restrained.

The candidates allowed each other to speak. They used respectful tones. Even
when they went on the attack, they did so in a calm, deliberate manner.

After a pugnacious first debate, during which Donald Trump's constant
interruptions may have cost him support in subsequent opinion polls, the
president has very visibly dialled down the volume - and it made him a much more
effective debater.

This time, the content of what the candidates are saying might be what the
American public remembers from the debate - not the chaotic manner in which it
was delivered.

Once again, Biden largely held up under fire - avoiding the kind of gaffes and
stumbles that could have played into Republican attempts to question his age and
mental acuity.

The Trump campaign will try to make an issue out of Biden's call for a
"transition" from oil-based energy - a risky thing to throw in at the tail end
of the debate. In an era of hybrid cars and energy-efficient homes, however,
when even petroleum companies employ similar language, it may not hit Americans
as hard as Republicans imagine.

In the end, the raucous first debate probably will be what the history books
remember. And with polls showing most Americans already having made up their
minds - and more than 45 million already having voted - the chance that this
evening has a lasting impact on the race seems slim.

Covid takes center stage

The Trump campaign complained that this debate was supposed to be focused on
foreign policy - perhaps allowing the president to tout what he sees as his
accomplishments in the Middle East, trade and Syria and go after Biden on his
son's business ties to China.

Instead, the debate, like earlier debates, started on the coronavirus pandemic -
a topic polls show the American public care most about.

Donald Trump, once again touted a vaccine he said would be ready "in weeks". He
offered personal testimony to the power of the new drugs to treat the disease
and boasted that he was now "immune".

Biden, not surprisingly, went on the attack. He pointed out Trump had repeatedly
promised the disease would disappear on its own. He said there were 220,000
Americans dead and there could be another 200,000 by the end of the year. media
captionPresidential debate: Trump and Biden clash on Covid response

In the back and forth between the two candidates, Trump continued to offer hope
that things were getting better and businesses and schools should reopen. And
when Trump said that people were "learning to live" with the disease, Biden
pounced.

"People are learning to live with it?" he asked. "People are learning to die
with it."

At one point, Trump offered an answer that he said was "perhaps just to finish
this". The president, clearly, was eager move on to different subjects. The
inevitable Hunter Biden exchange

Trump telegraphed early and often that he would make Biden's son Hunter a topic
of the debate, and it wasn't long before the president brought up the former
vice-president's family. He alleged that Biden personally profited from his
son's business dealings in Ukraine and China, citing recent news stories based
on information allegedly gleaned from Hunter Biden's laptop computer.

Biden's defence was a blanket denial, followed by changing the subject to
Trump's taxes and business ties to China. That forced the president to spend
time explaining about how he really "pre-paid" millions of dollars in taxes and
again saying he'd someday release his tax returns. The exchange, which would
require paragraphs to explain in any sufficient detail, probably left the casual
American view confused.

Trump was counting on drawing blood with his attacks on Biden's family, making
this into a controversy that finally pulls his front-running opponent back to
earth. Chances are this night won't do that.

An argument over immigration

Four years ago, Trump rode a hard line on immigration to the Republican
nomination and, ultimately, the White House. When the topic came up in Thursday
night's debate, however, he tried to downplay some of the more extreme steps
he's taken while in office. media captionPresidential debate: Trump says catch
and release only works on those with 'lowest IQs'

When asked about his administration's policy of separating the children from the
parents of undocumented migrants, for instance, Trump tried to turn the
conversation to the detention facilities - "cages," in Trump's term - created by
the Obama administration to house unaccompanied minor immigrants.

Biden, flashing indignation, noted that the children Trump was detaining came
over with their parents and that the policy was making the US a "laughing
stock". For many American voters, the audio of separated children crying for
their parents may still be relatively fresh in their minds.

Trump's response, that those children were "so well taken care of," in
"facilities that are so clean" probably didn't help his cause.

Trump finds his footing on criminal justice

In the first presidential debate, Trump talked himself into trouble when the
topic turned to race relations, as he danced around whether to directly condemn
white supremacist groups. This time around, the president was considerably more
nimble.

He boasted about his bipartisan criminal justice reform and funding for
historically black colleges. He attacked Biden for his sponsorship of a
draconian crime bill in the 1990s that led to a sharp rise in the number of
black Americans in prisons. And, perhaps most potently, when Biden began talking
about his proposals for reform, he questioned why the former vice-president
didn't accomplish more when he served with President Barack Obama.

"It's all talk but no action with these politicians," Trump said. "Why didn't
you get it done? You had eight years to get it done."

Anyone who lived through the "tough on crime" 1990s in the US would probably be
shocked by this debate exchange, where both candidates talked about the number
of felons to whom they gave clemency and their efforts at reducing the number of
incarcerated Americans. As the mass demonstrations against institutional racism
demonstrated earlier this year, the times have indeed changed.