2020 Election First Presidential Debate Transcript: Joe Biden & Donald Trump

CHRIS WALLACE:   Good evening, from the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.  I’m Chris Wallace of Fox News, and I welcome you to the first of the 2020 Presidential Debates between President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.  This debate is sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.  The Commission has designed the format, six roughly 15-minute segments, with 2-minute answers from each candidate to the first question, then open discussion for the rest of each segment.  Both campaigns have agreed to these rules.  For the record, I decided the topics and the questions in each topic.  I can assure you, none of the questions has been shared with the Commission or the two candidates.  This debate is being conducted under health and safety protocols designed by the Cleveland Clinic, which is serving as the health security advisor to the Commission for all four debates.  As a precaution, both campaigns have agreed the candidates will not shake hands at the beginning of tonight’s debate.  The audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent; no cheers, no boos, or other interruptions so we, and more importantly you, can focus on what the candidates have to say.  No noise except right now, as we welcome the Republican nominee, President Trump and the Democratic nominee, Vice President Biden.

JOE BIDEN:   How you doing, man?

DONALD TRUMP:   How are you?

JOE BIDEN:   Doing well.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen, a lot of people have been waiting for this night.  So, let’s get going.  Our first subject is the Supreme Court.  President Trump, you nominated Amy Coney Barrett over the weekend to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court.  You say the Constitution is clear about your obligation and the Senate’s to consider a nominee to the Court.  Vice President Biden, you say that this is an effort by the President and Republicans to jam through in an appointment in what you call an abuse of power.  My first question to both of you tonight, why are you right in the argument you make, and your opponent wrong, and where do you think a Justice Barrett would take the Court?  President Trump, in this first segment, you go first.  Two minutes.

DONALD TRUMP:   Thank you very much, Chris.  I will tell you very simply, we won the election.  Elections have consequences.  We have the Senate.  We have the White House, and we have a phenomenal nominee, respected by all.  Top, top academic, uh, good in every way.  Good in every way.  In fact, uh, some of her biggest endorsers are very liberal people from Notre Dame and other places.  So I think she’s going to be fantastic.  We have plenty of time, uh, even if we did it after the election itself.  I have a lot of time after the election, as you know.  So I think that, uh, she will be outstanding.  She’s going to be a, as good as anybody that has served on that Court.  We really feel that.  Uh, we have a professor at Notre Dame, highly respected by all, says she’s the single greatest student he’s ever had.  He’s been a professor for a long time at a great school, and, uh, we just, uh, we won the election, and therefore we have the right to choose her, and very few people knowingly would say otherwise.  And, by the way, the Democrats, they wouldn’t even think about not doing it.  If they had, the only difference is they’d try and do it faster.  There’s no way they would give it up.  They had Merrick Garland, but the problem is, they didn’t have the election, so they were stopped, and probably that would happen in reverse also.  Definitely would happen in reverse.  So we won the election, and we have the right to do it, Chris.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump, thank you.  Um, same question to you, Vice President Biden.  You have 2 minutes.

JOE BIDEN:   Well, first of all, um, thank you for doing this, and –

DONALD TRUMP:   Thank you.

JOE BIDEN:   Looking forward to this, Mr. President.

DONALD TRUMP:   Thank you, Joe.

JOE BIDEN:   I, uh – the American people have a right to have a say in who the Supreme Court nominee is, and that say occurs when they vote for, A) United States Senators, and when they vote for the President of the United States.  They’re not going to get that chance now, because we’re in the middle of an election already.  The election has already started.  Tens of thousands of people have already voted, and, so the thing that should happen is we should wait.  We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is, because that’s the only way the American people get to express their view is by who they elect as President and who they elect as Vice President.  Now, what’s at stake here is the President has made it clear he wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.  He’s been running on that.  He ran on that, and he’s been governing on that.  He’s in the Supreme Court right now trying to get rid of, uh, the, the Affordable Care Act, which, uh, will strip 20 million people from having insurance, health insurance now, if it, if they, if it goes into Court.  And, and, uh, the Justice – and I have nothing, I’m not opposed to the Justice, because she seems like a very fine person.  What she’s written before she went on the bench, which is her right, is she thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.  The other thing that’s on the Court – and if, if, and if it’s struck down, what happens?  Women’s rights are fundamentally changed.  Once again, a woman could be held, pay more money because she has a preexisting condition of pregnancy.  We’re able to, uh, they’re able to charge a woman more for the same exact procedure a man did – gets.  And that ended when we, in fact, passed the Affordable Care Act.  And there’s a hundred million people that have preexisting conditions, and they’ll be taken away as well.  Those preexisting conditions, the insurance companies are going to love this.  And, so, it’s just not appropriate to do this before this election.  If he wins the election and the Senate is Democrat or Republican, then it – he goes forward.  If not, we should wait until February.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

DONALD TRUMP:   There aren’t a hundred million people with preexisting conditions.  As far as a say is concerned, the people already had their say.  They – okay, Justice Ginsburg said very powerfully, very strongly, at some point, 10 years ago or so, she said a President and the Senate is elected for a period of time.  But a President is elected for 4 years.  We’re not elected for 3 years.  I’m not elected for 3 years.  So, we have the Senate.  We have a President.

JOE BIDEN:   He’s elected until the next election.

DONALD TRUMP:   During that period of time, during that period of time, we have an opening.  I’m not elected for 3 years.  I’m elected for 4 years.  And the hundred million people –

JOE BIDEN:   The election has already started.

DONALD TRUMP:   Joe, the hundred million people is totally wrong.  I don’t know where you got that number.  The bigger problem that you have is that you’re going to extinguish 180 million people with their private healthcare that they’re very happy with.

JOE BIDEN:   That’s simply not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, you’re certainly going to socialist, you’re going to socialist medicine.

CHRIS WALLACE:   So, this is, we’re now into – gentlemen, we’re now into open discussion.

JOE BIDEN:   Open discussions.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Open discussion.  Yes, I agree.  Go ahead, Vice President.

JOE BIDEN:   Number one, uh, he, he knows that, uh, what I proposed.  What I proposed is that, uh, we expand Obamacare, and we increase it.  We do not wipe any – and one of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that I won were saying that Biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance still.  They can.  They do.  They will, under my proposal.

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s not what you’ve said –

JOE BIDEN:   But that is –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and it’s not what your party has said.

JOE BIDEN:   That is simply a lie.

DONALD TRUMP:   Your party doesn’t say it.

JOE BIDEN:   That is –

DONALD TRUMP:   Your party wants to go socialist medicine –

JOE BIDEN:   My party is me.

DONALD TRUMP:   – and socialist healthcare.

JOE BIDEN:   Right now, I am the Democratic Party.

DONALD TRUMP:   And they’re going to dominate you, Joe.  You know that.

JOE BIDEN:   I am the Democratic Party, right now.  The platform of the Democratic Party is –

DONALD TRUMP:   Not according to Harris.

JOE BIDEN:   – what I, in fact, approved of.  What I approved of.  Now, here’s the deal.  The deal is that it’s going to wipe out preexisting conditions.  And, by the way, the 20, the 200 million, the 200,000 people that have died on his watch, they are – how many of those, uh, have survived?  Well, there’s 7,000,000 people that have contracted COVID.  What does it mean for them going forward if you strike down the Affordable Care Act and –

DONALD TRUMP:   Joe, you’ve had 308,000 military people dying because you couldn’t provide them proper healthcare in the military.  So, don’t tell me about this.

JOE BIDEN:   I’m happy to talk about this.

DONALD TRUMP:   And if you were here, you –

JOE BIDEN:   Look, here’s the deal.

DONALD TRUMP:   It wouldn’t be 200, it would be 2,000,000, people because you were very late on the draw.

JOE BIDEN:   Late on the draw.

DONALD TRUMP:   You didn’t want me to ban China, which was heavily infected.  You didn’t want me to ban –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.  We’re, uh, gentlemen –

DONALD TRUMP:   – Europe, which was heavily –

CHRIS WALLACE:   We, we – no.  Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP:   You would have been much later, Joe.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President?  Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP:   Much later.  You’re talking about 2,000,000 people.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

JOE BIDEN:   You’re not going to be able to shut him up.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, as a moderator – we are going to talk about COVID in the next segment.  But go ahead.

JOE BIDEN:   Let me finish.  The point is that the President also is opposed to Roe v. Wade.  That’s on the ballot as well in the Court, in the Court.  And so that’s also at stake right now.  And so the election is already begun –

DONALD TRUMP:   You don’t know what’s on the ballot.

JOE BIDEN:   I –

DONALD TRUMP:   Why is it on the ballot?

JOE BIDEN:   Because, because you said you’re –

DONALD TRUMP:   Why is it on the ballot?  It’s not on the ballot.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s on the ballot in the Court.

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t think so.

JOE BIDEN:   In the Court.  Well –

DONALD TRUMP:   There’s nothing happening there.

JOE BIDEN:   Donald, would you just be quiet for a minute?

DONALD TRUMP:   And you don’t know her view on Roe v. Wade.

JOE BIDEN:   I don’t know.

DONALD TRUMP:   You don’t know her view.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, all right, let’s – all right, let’s talk, I – we’ve got a lot to unpack here, gentlemen.  We got a lot of time.  So, uh, on healthcare, uh, and then we’ll come back to Roe v. Wade.

JOE BIDEN:   All right.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, the Supreme Court will hear a case a week after the election in which the Trump administration, along with 18 state attorneys general, are seeking to overturn –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s right.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – Obamacare.  To end Obamacare.  You have spent the last –

DONALD TRUMP:   Because we want to give –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let me, if I, if I may –

DONALD TRUMP:   – good healthcare.

CHRIS WALLACE:   If I may ask –

DONALD TRUMP:   Go ahead.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – my question, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Good healthcare.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Over, uh, the last 4 years, you have promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, but you have never in these 4 years come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan –

DONALD TRUMP:   Of course I have.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – to replace Obamacare.

DONALD TRUMP:   Of course I have.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, I’ll give you an opportunity –

DONALD TRUMP:   We got rid of the individual mandate.

CHRIS WALLACE:   When I finish, I’m going to give you an opportunity, but I –

DONALD TRUMP:   Excuse me, I got rid of the individual mandate, which was a big chunk of Ob –

CHRIS WALLACE:   That is not a comprehensive plan.

DONALD TRUMP:   That is absolutely a big thing.  That was the worst –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, I, I didn’t ask –

DONALD TRUMP:   – part of Obamacare.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir –

DONALD TRUMP:   Chris, that was the worst part of Obamacare.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – (inaudible) him and not me.  Let me ask my question.

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, I’ll, I’ll ask Joe.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I, uh, I, no, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   The individual mandate was the most unpopular aspect–

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice Pre, Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   – of Obamacare.  I got rid of it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I would like you to –

DONALD TRUMP:   And we will protect people –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   – with preexisting conditions.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I’m the moderator of this debate, and I would like you to let me ask my question, and then you can answer.

DONALD TRUMP:   Go ahead.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You, in the course of these 4 years have never come up with a comprehensive plan to replace Obamacare, and just this last Thursday, you signed a largely symbolic executive order –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – to protect people with preexisting conditions 5 days before this debate.  So, my question, sir, is what is the Trump healthcare plan?

DONALD TRUMP:   All right.  Well, first of all, I guess I’m debating you, not him.  But that’s okay.  I’m not surprised.  Let me just tell you something, that there’s nothing symbolic.  I’m cutting drug prices.  I’m going with favored nations, which no president has the courage to do, because you’re going against big pharma.  Drug prices will be coming down 80 or 90 percent.  You could have done it during your 47‑year period in government, but you didn’t do it.  Nobody’s done it.  So, we’re cutting healthcare.

CHRIS WALLACE:   What about preexisting conditions?

DONALD TRUMP:   All of the things that we’ve done –

JOE BIDEN:   He has not cut healthcare.

DONALD TRUMP:   Insulin.  I’ll give you an example.  Insulin.  It’s going to, it was destroying families, destroying people, the cost.  I’m getting it for so cheap, it’s like water.  You want to know the truth?  So cheap.  Take a look at all of the drugs that, what we’re doing, prescription drug prices.  We’re going to allow our governors now to go to other countries to buy drugs –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   – because they pay just a tiny fraction.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I’ve got to say, this is open discussion.

DONALD TRUMP:   No, but this is big –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let me ask you about, let me ask – you’ll be happy.

DONALD TRUMP:   This is big stuff.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir, you’ll be happy.  I’m about to pick up on one of your points to ask the Vice President, which is he points out that you would like to add a public option to Obamacare.

JOE BIDEN:   Yes.

CHRIS WALLACE:   And the argument that he makes, and other Republicans make, is that that is going to end private insurance, and will –

JOE BIDEN:   It is not.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh –

JOE BIDEN:   I’m sorry.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Can I ask you the question?  And, it will end –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s not what your party says, by the way.

CHRIS WALLACE:   It will end private insurance and create a government takeover of healthcare.

JOE BIDEN:   It does not.  It’s only for those people who are so poor they qualify for Medicaid.  They can get that free in most states, expect governors who want to deny people who are poor Medicaid.  Anyone who qualifies for Medicare would, excuse me, Medicaid, would automatically be enrolled in the public option.  The vast majority of the American people would still not be in that option, number one.

DONALD TRUMP:   Joe, you agreed –

JOE BIDEN:   Number two –

DONALD TRUMP:   – with Bernie Sanders –

JOE BIDEN:   Number, I, I didn’t –

DONALD TRUMP:   – who is far left on the manifesto, we call it.

JOE BIDEN:   We knew –  manifesto –

DONALD TRUMP:   And that gives you socialized medicine.

JOE BIDEN:   Look, hey.  I’m not –

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you saying you didn’t agree?

JOE BIDEN:   – going to listen to him.  The fact of the matter is, I beat Bernie Sanders.

DONALD TRUMP:   Not by much.

JOE BIDEN:   I, I beat him a whole hell of a lot.

DONALD TRUMP:   Not by much.

JOE BIDEN:   I’m here, I’m here standing facing you, old buddy.

DONALD TRUMP:   If Pocahontas would have left 2 days early –

JOE BIDEN:   Well, I said –

DONALD TRUMP:   – you would have lost every primary –

JOE BIDEN:   All he knows how to do is –

DONALD TRUMP:   – on Super Tuesday.

JOE BIDEN:   Look.

DONALD TRUMP:   You got very lucky.

JOE BIDEN:   Here’s the deal.  I got very lucky.  I’m going to get very lucky tonight as well.  And tonight, I’m going to make sure –

DONALD TRUMP:   With what?

JOE BIDEN:   Because –

DONALD TRUMP:   With what?

JOE BIDEN:   Here’s the deal.  Here’s the deal.  The fact is that everything he’s saying so far is simply a lie.  I’m not here to call out his lies.  Everybody knows he’s a liar.

DONALD TRUMP:   But you agree –

JOE BIDEN:   I just want to make sure that –

DONALD TRUMP:   – (inaudible), Joe, you’re the liar.

JOE BIDEN:   I, I, I, I want to make sure –

DONALD TRUMP:   You graduated last in your class, not first in your class.

JOE BIDEN:   Oh, god.  I want to make sure –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, can you let him finish, sir?

JOE BIDEN:   No, he doesn’t know how to do that.  He has –

DONALD TRUMP:   You’d be surprised.

JOE BIDEN:   You know, uh, you, you pick –

DONALD TRUMP:   You’d be surprised.  Go ahead, Joe.

JOE BIDEN:   – the wrong guy, the wrong night, at the wrong time.

DONALD TRUMP:   Go, go, go on Joe.  No, listen.  You agreed with Bernie Sanders –

JOE BIDEN:   Here’s the deal.  The whole idea –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and the manifesto –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let, let, let, let him –

DONALD TRUMP:   – (inaudible). 

JOE BIDEN:   There is no manifesto, number one.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Please let him speak, Mr. President.

JOE BIDEN:   Number two –

DONALD TRUMP:   He just lost the left.

JOE BIDEN:   Number two, I, I, uh –

DONALD TRUMP:   You just lost the left.  You agreed with Bernie Sanders on a plan –

JOE BIDEN:   How, folks –

DONALD TRUMP:   – that you absolutely agreed to –

JOE BIDEN:   Folks, do you have any idea what this clown’s doing?

DONALD TRUMP:   – and under that plan, you have socialized, they call it Medicare for All.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr., Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   Socialized medicine.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

JOE BIDEN:   Well, I tell you what.  He is not for any help for people needing healthcare.  Because –

DONALD TRUMP:   Who isn’t?  Bernie?

JOE BIDEN:   Because he, in fact, already has cost 10 million people their healthcare that they had from their employers because of his recession, number one.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, oh, yeah.  Yeah.

JOE BIDEN:   Number two, there are 20 million people getting healthcare through Obamacare now that he wants to take it away.  He won’t ever look you in the eye and say that’s what he wants to do, take it away.

DONALD TRUMP:   No, I want to give you better healthcare –

JOE BIDEN:   But –

DONALD TRUMP:   – at a much lower price.

JOE BIDEN:   But, and, by the way –

DONALD TRUMP:   Because Obamacare is no good.

JOE BIDEN:   – he doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know how to do that.

DONALD TRUMP:   I’ve already fixed it.

JOE BIDEN:   He has never offered a plan.

DONALD TRUMP:   I’ve already fixed it to an extent.

JOE BIDEN:   He has never done a single thing.

DONALD TRUMP:   Obamacare, as you might know, but probably don’t, Obamacare is no good, Joe.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen, you realize if you’re both speaking at the same time –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s no good, and it’s too expensive.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let, let, let, let the President speak, go ahead, sir.

DONALD TRUMP:   Obamacare is no good.  We made it better.  And I had a choice to make very early on.  We took away the individual mandate.  We guaranteed pre-existing conditions, but took away the individual – 

JOE BIDEN:   Not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   – the individual mandate.  Listen, this is the way it is.  And that destroyed, that – they shouldn’t even call it Obamacare.  Then I had a choice to make, do I let my people run it really well or badly.  If I run it badly, they’ll probably blame him, but they’ll blame me, but more importantly, I want to help people, okay?  I said, you got to run it so well. 

JOE BIDEN:   That’s what he’s going for. 

DONALD TRUMP:   And I just had a meeting with them.  They said the problem is, no matter how well you run Obamacare, it’s a disaster.  It’s too expensive. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, I gotcha, I got – 

DONALD TRUMP:   Premiums are too high – 

JOE BIDEN:   That’s what his –   

DONALD TRUMP:   – and it doesn’t work. 

JOE BIDEN:   That’s what his people said. 

DONALD TRUMP:   So, we, we do want to get – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, no, no.  But I, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – rid of it. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Look – 

DONALD TRUMP:   Chris, we want to get rid of it, – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – it’s an open – I understand – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – and get something – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – that, sir, but I have to – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – that’s cheaper and better. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I have to give you roughly equal time. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Okay.  Good. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Please let the Vice President talk, sir. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Good. 

JOE BIDEN:   He has no plan for healthcare. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Course we do. 

JOE BIDEN:   He sends, – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Please. 

JOE BIDEN:   – he sends out wishful thinking.  He has executive orders that have no power.  He hasn’t lowered drug costs for anybody.  He’s been promising a healthcare plan since he got elected.  He has none, like almost everything else he talks about.  He does not have a plan.  He doesn’t have a plan.  And the fact is, this man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  He’s against – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, I have one, I have one final question for you, – 

JOE BIDEN:   Sure. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – uh, Mr. Vice President.  If Senate Republicans – we were talking originally about the Supreme Court here – if Senate Republicans go ahead and confirm Justice Barrett, uh, there has been talk about ending the filibuster or even packing the court, adding to the nine justices there.  You call this a distraction by the President, but, in fact, it wasn’t brought up by the President.  It was brought up by some of your Democratic colleagues in –

JOE BIDEN:   No, I’m saying – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – in the Congress.  So my question to you is, you have refused in the past to talk about it, are you willing to tell the American people tonight whether or not you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court? 

JOE BIDEN:   Whatever position I take in that, that’ll become the issue.  The issue is, the American people should speak.  You should go out and vote.  You’re in voting now.  Vote and let your Senators know how strongly you feel. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you going to pack the court? 

JOE BIDEN:   Let – vote now. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you going to pack the court? 

JOE BIDEN:   Make sure you, in fact, let people know. 

DONALD TRUMP:   He doesn’t want to answer the question. 

JOE BIDEN:   Your Senators.  I’m not going to answer the question, because – 

DONALD TRUMP:   Why wouldn’t you answer that question? 

JOE BIDEN:   – because the question is, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   You want to put a lot of new supreme court justices – 

JOE BIDEN:   – the question is, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – radical left – 

JOE BIDEN:   – the question – will you shut up, man? 

DONALD TRUMP:   Who is your, listen, who is on your list, Joe?  Who’s on your list?

JOE BIDEN:   This is so – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen – 

JOE BIDEN:   – this is – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I think we’ve ended this – 

JOE BIDEN:   – this is so unpresidential (inaudible). 

DONALD TRUMP:   He’s going to pack the court –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – we have ended, no, no. 

DONALD TRUMP:   – and he’s not going to give a list. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   We have ended this segment.  We’re going to move on to the second segment. 

JOE BIDEN:   That was really a productive segment, wasn’t it?  Keep yapping, man. 

DONALD TRUMP:   The people understand, Joe. 

JOE BIDEN:   They sure do. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Forty-seven years, you’ve done nothing.  They understand.

JOE BIDEN:   Oh – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.  The second subject is COVID-19, which is an awfully serious subject, so let’s try to be serious about it.  We have had more than 7 million cases of coronavirus in the United States, and more than 200,000 people have died.  Even after we produce a vaccine, experts say that it could be months, or even years, before we come back to anything approaching normal.  My question for both of you is, based on what you have said and done so far and what you have said you would do starting in 2021, why should the American people trust you more than your opponent to deal with this public health crisis going forward?  In this case, the question goes to you first, sir.  Two minutes uninterrupted. 

JOE BIDEN:   Good luck.  200,000 dead.  As you’ve said, over 7,000,000 infected in the United States.  We, in fact, have 5 percent – we’re 4 percent of the world’s population, 20 percent of the deaths.  40,000 people a day are contracting COVID.  In addition to that, about between 750 and 1,000 people a day are dying.  When he was presented with that number, he said, “It is what it is.”  Well, it is what it is because you are who you are.  That’s why it is.  The President has no plan.  He hasn’t laid out anything.  He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis was.  He knew it was a deadly disease.  What did he do?  He’s on tape as acknowledging he knew it.  He said he didn’t tell us or give people a warning of it, because he didn’t want to panic the American people.  You don’t panic.  He panicked.  In addition to that, what did he do?  He went in and he – we were insisting that the China, the, the people we had on the ground in China should be able to go to Wuhan and determine for themselves how dangerous this was.  He did not even ask Xi to do that.  He told us – 

DONALD TRUMP:   Wrong. 

JOE BIDEN:   – what a great job Xi was doing.  He said we owe him a debt of gratitude for being so transparent with us, and what did he do then?  He then did nothing.  He, he waited and waited and waited.  He still doesn’t have a plan. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Wrong. 

JOE BIDEN:   I laid out back in March, – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir, it’s his 2 minutes. 

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s so, it’s so wrong. 

JOE BIDEN:   – exactly what we should be doing.  And I laid out again in July what we should be doing.  We should be providing all the protective gear – we should be providing the money the House has passed in order to be able to go out and get people the help they need to keep their businesses open, open schools that cost a lot of money.  You should get out of your bunker, and get out of the sand trap, and get in – and your golf course, and go in the Oval Office and bring together the Democrats and Republicans, and fund what needs to be done now to save lives. 

DONALD TRUMP:   So, if we – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – would’ve listened to you – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait, wait, you have 2 minutes, sir. 

DONALD TRUMP:   If we would’ve listened to you, the country would’ve been left wide open.  Millions of people would’ve died.  Not 200,000, and one person is too much.  It’s China’s fault.  It should have never happened.  They stopped it from going in, but it was China’s fault.  And, by the way, when you talk about numbers, you don’t know how many people died in China.  You don’t know how many people died in Russia.  You don’t know how many people died in India.  They don’t exactly give you a straight count, just so you understand.  But if you look at what we’ve done, I closed it, and you said he’s xenophobic.  He’s a racist and he’s xenophobic, because you didn’t think – 

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not related to your COVID – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – I should’ve closed our country.  Wait a minute. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   (Inaudible).  It’s his 2 minutes. 

DONALD TRUMP:   You didn’t think we should’ve closed our country, because you thought it was too, it was terrible.  You wouldn’t have closed it for another 2 months.  By my doing it early, in fact, Dr. Fauci said President Trump saved thousands of lives.  Many of your Democrat governors said President Trump did a phenomenal job.  We worked with the governor – oh really?  Go take a look.  Your governors said I did a phenomenal job.  Most of them said that.  In fact, people that would not be necessarily on my side said that.  President Trump did a phenomenal job.  We did.  We got the gowns, we got the masks, we made the ventilators.  You wouldn’t have made ventilators, and now we’re weeks away from a vaccine.  We’re doing therapeutics already.  Fewer people are dying when they get sick.  Far fewer people are dying.  We’ve done a great job.  The only thing I haven’t done a good job, and that’s because of the fake news, no matter what you say to them, they give you bad press on it.  It’s just fake news.  They give you good press, they give me bad press, because that’s the way it is unfortunately.  But let me just tell you something.  I don’t care, I’ve gotten used to it.  But I’ll tell you, Joe, you could never have done the job that we did.  You don’t have it in your blood.  You could’ve never done that job.

JOE BIDEN:   I know how to do the job.  I know how to get the job done. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, you didn’t do very well on the swine flu.  H1N1, you were a disaster.  Your own chief of staff – 

JOE BIDEN:   14,000 – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – said you were a disaster. 

JOE BIDEN:   – 14,000 people died, not 200,000.  There was – 

DONALD TRUMP:   A very – 

JOE BIDEN:   – no economic recession. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let’s, sir, you made a point – 

DONALD TRUMP:   A far less lethal disease, by the way. 

JOE BIDEN:   There were no, there was no (inaudible).    

CHRIS WALLACE:   – you made a point, let him answer. 

JOE BIDEN:   And there was no one, there’s no – we didn’t shut down the economy.  This is his economy that’s being, he shut down.  The reason it’s shut down is because – look, you folks at home, how many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died of COVID?  How many of you are in a situation where you lost your mom or dad and you couldn’t even speak to them?  You had a nurse holding a phone up so you could, in fact, say goodbye? 

DONALD TRUMP:   You would have lost far more people. 

JOE BIDEN:   How many people? 

DONALD TRUMP:   Far more people. 

JOE BIDEN:   That is – 

DONALD TRUMP:   You would’ve been months late.

JOE BIDEN:   And, and by the way, your own, his, his own, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   You were months behind me, Joe. 

JOE BIDEN:   – his own CDC director says we could lose as many as another 200,000 people between now and the end of the year, and he held up, he said if we just wear a mask, we can save half those numbers.  Just, just a mask.  And by the way, in terms of the whole notion of a vaccine, we’re for a vaccine, but we – I don’t trust him at all, nor do you.  I know you don’t.  What we trust is the scientists. 

DONALD TRUMP:   You don’t trust Johnson and Johnson?

JOE BIDEN:   We trust Dr. Fauci. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Pfizer? 

JOE BIDEN:   We, we, and by the way –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.  Gentlemen, – 

JOE BIDEN:   – and then – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentleman, let me, let me move on to questions about the future, because you both have touched on one of the, two of the questions I’m going to ask.  Uh, focusing on the future first, President Trump, you have repeatedly either contradicted or been at odds with some of your government’s own top scientists.  The week before last, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Redfield, said it would be summer before the vaccine would become generally available to the public.  You said that he was confused and mistaken.  Those were your two words. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Yeah. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   But, Dr. Slaoui, the head of your Operation Warp Speed, has said exactly the same thing.  Are they both wrong? 

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, I’ve spoken to the companies, and we can have it a lot sooner.  It’s a very political thing, because people like this would rather make it political than save lives.  It is a very political thing.  I’ve spoken to Pfizer, and I’ve spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to.  We have great – Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and others.  They can go faster than that by a lot.  Become very political because the left, or I don’t know if I’d call them left. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   So, so you’re suggesting – 

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t know what I’d call them. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – that the head of your Operation Warp Speed, Dr. Slaoui – 

DONALD TRUMP:   I disagree with him.  Yeah, no, I disagree with both of them.  And he didn’t say that.  He said it could be there, but it could also be much sooner.  I, I had him in my office 2 days ago. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   He talked, he talked about the summer, sir, before it’s generally available, just like Dr. Redfield. 

DONALD TRUMP:   He said it’s a possibility that we’ll have the answer before November 1^st.  It could also be after that. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I’m talking about when it’s generally available, not when it’ll be – 

DONALD TRUMP:   It, well, we’re going to deliver it right away.  We have the military all set up.  Logistically, they’re all set up.  We have our military that delivers soldiers, and they can do 200,000 a day.  They’re going to be delivering the vaccine 

JOE BIDEN:   This is the same man who told you – 

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s all set up. 

JOE BIDEN:   – by Easter, this’d be gone away.  By the warm weather, it’d be gone, miraculous, like a miracle.  And by the way, maybe you can inject some bleach in your arm and that would take care of it.  This is the same man. 

DONALD TRUMP:   That was said sarcastically, and you know that. 

JOE BIDEN:   That was him. 

DONALD TRUMP:   That was said sarcastically. 

JOE BIDEN:   And so here’s the deal.  This man is talking about a vaccine.  Every serious, every serious company is talking about maybe having a vaccine done by the end of the year, but the distribution of that vaccine will not occur until sometime beginning or the middle of next year to get it out if we get the vaccine.  And pray God we will. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   But, but, – 

JOE BIDEN:   Pray God we will. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – Mr. Vice President, I want to pick up, though, on that. 

DONALD TRUMP:   You’ll have the vaccine sooner than that. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I want to pick up on this question, though.  You say the public can trust the scientists, but they can’t trust President Trump.  In fact, you said that again tonight.  Your running mate, Senator Harris, goes further, saying that public health experts, quote “will be muzzled, will be suppressed”.  Given the fact that polls already show that people are concerned about the vaccine and are reluctant to take it, are you and your running mate, Senator Harris, contributing to that fear? 

JOE BIDEN:   No more than the question you just asked him.  You point it out.  He puts pressure and disagrees with his own scientists. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   But you’re saying you can’t – 

JOE BIDEN:   Everybody knows –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – (inaudible) Senator Harris – 

JOE BIDEN:   No.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – has said you can’t trust the scientists. 

JOE BIDEN:   No.  Well, no, no.  You can trust the scientists.  He didn’t, she didn’t say that.  You can trust the scientists. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   She, she said that public experts, quote, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   She did say that. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – will be muzzled – 

JOE BIDEN:   Yes. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – will be suppressed. 

JOE BIDEN:   Well, that’s what he’s going to try to do, but there’s millions of scientists, thousands of scientists out there, like here at this great hospital, that don’t work for him.  Their job doesn’t depend on him.  That’s not, they’re the people, they’re, and by the way, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   I spoke to the scientists – 

JOE BIDEN:   And Fauci –   

DONALD TRUMP:   – that are in charge. 

JOE BIDEN:   And by the way, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   They will have – 

JOE BIDEN:   And – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – the vaccine very soon. 

JOE BIDEN:   – that’s, – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let him –

JOE BIDEN:   Do you believe for a moment what he’s telling you, in light of all the lies he’s told you about the whole issue relating to COVID?  He still hasn’t even acknowledged that he knew this was happening, knew how dangerous it was going to be back in February, and he didn’t even tell you.  He’s on record as saying it.  He panicked or he just looked at the stock market, one of the two.  Because guess what, a lot of people died.  And a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot quicker and – 

DONALD TRUMP:   So – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President? 

DONALD TRUMP:   Did you use the word “smart”?  Uh, so you said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college. 

JOE BIDEN:   I didn’t say. 

DONALD TRUMP:   You didn’t go to Delaware State.  You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class.  Don’t ever use the word smart with me.  Don’t ever use that word. 

JOE BIDEN:   Oh, give me a break. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Because, you know what, there’s nothing smart about you, Joe.  Forty-seven years, you’ve done nothing. 

JOE BIDEN:   Well, let’s have this debate, and we’ll see – 

DONALD TRUMP:   And if you would’ve had – let me just tell you something, Joe. If you would’ve had the charge of what I was put through – I had to close the greatest economy in the history of our country, and by the way, now it’s being built again, and it’s going up fast.

JOE BIDEN:   See, he – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   We’re going to get to the economy in the next segment, sir. 

JOE BIDEN:   Okay. 

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s going up fast. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Look forward to talking about it. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   When it comes to how the virus has been handled so far, the two of you have taken very different approaches, and this is going to affect how the virus is handled going forward by whichever of you ends up becoming the next President.  I want to quickly go through several of those.  Re-openings, Vice President Biden, you have been much more reluctant than President Trump about reopening the economy and schools.  Why, sir? 

JOE BIDEN:   Because he doesn’t have a plan.  If I were running it, I know how, what the plan is.  You’ve got to provide these businesses the ability to have the money to be able to reopen with the PPE as well as with the sanitation they need.  You have to provide – 

DONALD TRUMP:   Tell that to Nancy Pelosi. 

JOE BIDEN:   – them plastic – will he just shush for a minute? 

DONALD TRUMP:   Tell it to Nancy Pelosi. 

JOE BIDEN:   And, by the way –

DONALD TRUMP:   And Schumer, Crying Chuck. 

JOE BIDEN:   Nancy Pelosi and Schumer, they have a plan.  He won’t even meet with them.  The Republicans won’t meet with them – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay. 

JOE BIDEN:   – in the Senate. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let – 

JOE BIDEN:   And he, and he sits, he sits on his golf courses.  I mean, literally, – 

DONALD TRUMP:   I’m not – okay. 

JOE BIDEN:   – think about it. 

DONALD TRUMP:   You probably play more than I do, Joe. 

JOE BIDEN:   Think about it. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, what about this question of re-openings and the fact –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, he wants to shut down this country – 

JOE BIDEN:   Oh. 

DONALD TRUMP:   – and I want to keep it open.  And we did a great thing by shutting it down, 

JOE BIDEN:   You just admitted you shut it down.

DONALD TRUMP:   Wait a minute, Joe, let me shut you down for a sec, Joe, just for 1 second.  We want to, he wants to shut down the country.  We just went through it.  We had to because we didn’t know anything about the disease.  Now we’ve found that elderly people with heart problems and diabetes and different problems are very, very vulnerable.  We learned a lot.  Young children aren’t, uh, even younger people aren’t.  We’ve learned a lot, but he wants to shut it down.  More people will be hurt by continuing.  If you look at Pennsylvania, if you look at certain states that have been shut down, they have Democrat governors all.  One of the reasons they shut down is because they want to keep it shut down until after the election –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I want to –

DONALD TRUMP:   – on November 3rd –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – want to move on to another –

DONALD TRUMP:   – because it’s a political thing.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I want to go on to another –

JOE BIDEN:   I got to respond to that –

DONALD TRUMP:   But those states –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentleman, I want to move on to another –

DONALD TRUMP:   – those states are not doing well that are shut down.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – subject (inaudible) –

JOE BIDEN:   I got to respond to that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump, you have begun to increasingly question the effectiveness of masks as a disease preventer and in fact, recently you have cited the, the issue of, of waiters touching their masks and touching plates.  Are you questioning –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, I think masks are okay.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – the efficacy of, of masks?

DONALD TRUMP:   You have to understand, if you look – I mean, I have a mask right here.  I put a mask on, you know, when I think I need it.  Tonight is an example.  Everybody’s had a test, and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to, but I –

JOE BIDEN:   Just like your rally.

DONALD TRUMP:   – wear masks when needed.  When needed, I wear masks.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, let me ask –

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t, I don’t wear masks like him.  Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.  He could be speaking 200 feet away from it, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.  I will say –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice –

DONALD TRUMP:   I will say this –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President Biden, go ahead, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Look, the way to open businesses is give them the wherewithal to be able to open.  We provided money –

CHRIS WALLACE:   But I was asking, sir, about masks.

JOE BIDEN:   Well masks, masks make a big difference.  His own head of the CDC said if we just wore masks between now, if everybody wore a mask and social distanced between now and January, we’d probably save up to 100,000 lives.  It matters.

DONALD TRUMP:   And they’ve also said the opposite.

JOE BIDEN:   It matters –

DONALD TRUMP:   They’ve also said the opposite.

JOE BIDEN:   No, no serious person said the opposite.  No serious –

DONALD TRUMP:  They’ve also said –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, I want to ask you –

DONALD TRUMP:   Dr. Fauci, Dr. Fauci said the opposite.

JOE BIDEN:   He did not say the opposite.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I want to ask you – we’ve got –

DONALD TRUMP:   He said very strongly –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – a little less than a minute left in the segment.

DONALD TRUMP:   – masks are not good.  Then he changed his mind.  He said masks are good.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   I’m okay with masks.  I’m not fighting masks.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – want to ask you both about one last subject, because your different approaches has even affected the way that you have campaigned.  President Trump, you’re holding the large rallies with crowds packed together, thousands of people –

DONALD TRUMP:   Outside.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Outside, yes sir, agreed.  Uh, Vice President Biden, you are holding much smaller, uh, events –

DONALD TRUMP:   Because nobody will show up.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – with people with masks –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well it’s true.  Nobody shows up to his rallies.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, all right.  In any case, why you holding the big rallies; why you not?  You go first, sir.

DONALD TRUMP:   Because people want to hear what I have to say.  I mean –

CHRIS WALLACE:   But are you not worried about it spreading the disease?

DONALD TRUMP:   – I’ve done a great job as the President, and I’ll have 25, 35,000 people show up at airports.  We use airports and hangars, and we have a lot of people –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Are you not worried about the disease issues, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   Well so far, we have had no problem whatsoever.  It’s outside.  That’s a big difference according to the experts, and we do them outside.  We have tremendous crowds as you see.  I mean, every – and, and literally on 24 hours’ notice, and Joe does the circles and has three people some places.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   But by the way, did you see this, did you see one of the last big rallies he had, and a reporter came up to him to ask him a question.  He said, “No, no, no, stand back, put on your mask, put on a mask.  Have you been tested?”  I’m way, I’m way far away from those other people.  That’s what he said.  I can’t, I’m going to be okay.  He’s not worried about you.  He’s not worried about the people out there breathing on one another –

DONALD TRUMP:   We’ve had no negative effect.

JOE BIDEN:   – (inaudible).  No negative effect?

DONALD TRUMP:   No negative effect.  We’ve had no negative effect and we’ve had 35, 40,000 people –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, you want to –

DONALD TRUMP:   – at these rallies.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – just quickly finish up, because I want to move on to our next –

JOE BIDEN:   Yes, I would.  He’s been totally irresponsible the way in which he has handled the, the social distancing and people wearing masks.  Basically encouraging them not to.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

JOE BIDEN:   He’s a fool on this.

DONALD TRUMP:   If you could get the crowds, you would have done the same thing, but you can’t.  Nobody cares.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentleman, can we move on to the –

DONALD TRUMP:   Nobody cares.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentleman, can we move on to the economy?

DONALD TRUMP:   Yes.

CHRIS WALLACE:   The economy is, I think it’s fair to say, recovering faster than expected from the shut down –

DONALD TRUMP:   Much faster.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – in the second quarter.  The unemployment rate fell to 8.4 percent last month.  The Federal Reserve says the hit to, to growth, which is going to be there, is not going to be nearly as big as they had expected.  President Trump, you say we are in a V shaped recovery.  Vice President Biden, you say it’s more of a K shape.  What difference does that mean to the American people in terms of the economy?  President Trump, in this segment, you go first.

DONALD TRUMP:   So we built the greatest economy in history.  We closed it down because of the China plague.  When the plague came in, we closed it down, which was very hard psychologically to do.  He didn’t think we should close it down, and he was wrong – and again 2 million people would be dead now instead of – still 204,000 people is too much.  One person is too much.  Should have never happened from China, but what happened is, we closed it down and now we’re re-opening, and we’re doing record business.  We had 10.4 million people in a 4‑month period that we’ve put back into the work force.  That’s a record the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before, and he wants to close down the – he will shut it down again.  He will destroy this country.  You know a lot of people, between drugs and alcohol and depression, when you start shutting it down, you take a look at what’s happening in some of your Democrat run states where they have these tough shut downs, and I’m telling you it’s because they don’t want to open it.  One of them came out last week, you saw that, oh, we’re going to open up on November 9th.  Why November 9th?  Because it’s after the election.  They think they’re hurting us by keeping them closed.  They’re hurting people.  People know what to do.  They can social distance.  They can wash their hands.  They can wear masks.  They can do whatever they want, but they got to open these states up.  When you look at North Carolina, when you look – and these governors are under siege – Pennsylvania, Michigan and a couple of others, you got to open these states up.  It’s not fair.  You’re talking about, almost it’s like being in prison.  And you look at what’s going on with divorce, look at what’s going on with alcoholism and drugs.  It’s a very, very sad thing, and he’ll close down the whole country.  This guy will close down the whole country and destroy our country.  Our country is coming back incredibly well setting records as it does it.  We don’t need somebody to come in and say let’s shut it down.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, your 2 minutes, sir.  We’re now moved to you.  As I, as I said posing the question, the President says it’s a V-shape recovery.  You say it’s a K-shaped recovery.  What’s the difference?

JOE BIDEN:   The difference is millionaires and billionaires like him in the middle of the COVID crisis have done very well.  You know, the billionaires have, have made another 300 billion dollars because of his profligate tax, uh, uh, proposal, and he only focuses on the market.  But you folks at home, you folks living in Scranton and Claymont and all the small towns and working class towns in America, how well are you doing?  This guy paid –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well.

JOE BIDEN:   – a total of $750.00 in taxes.  How many –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s wrong.  Many millions – 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir, sir, wait, wait, no, sir, it’s –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s just a wrong statement.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Yeah, I understand.  You’ve agreed to the 2 minutes.  So please let him have it.

JOE BIDEN:   Do I get my time back?  The fact is that he is, in fact, worked on this in a way that he’s going to be the first President of the United States to leave office having fewer jobs in his administration than when he became President.  Fewer jobs than when he became President.  First one in American history.  Secondly, the people who have lost their jobs are those people who have been on the front lines, those people who have been saving our lives, those people who have went out there dying.  People who’ve been putting themselves in the way to make sure that we could all try to make it, and the idea that he is insisting that we go forward and open, when you have almost half the states in American with a significant increase in COVID deaths and COVID cases in the United States of America, and he wants to open it up more.  Why’s he want to open it up?  Why doesn’t he take care of the Amer – you can’t fix the economy until you fix the COVID crisis, and he has no intention of doing anything about making it better for you all at home in terms of your health and your safety.  Schools.  Why aren’t schools open?  Because it costs a lot of money to open them safely.  You know, they, they were going to give, his administration was going to give the teachers and school students masks.  Then they decided no, couldn’t do that because it’s not a national emergency.  Not a national emergency.  They’ve done nothing to help small businesses.  Nothing.  They’re closing.  One in six is now gone.  He ought to get on the job and take care of the needs of the American people, so we can open safely.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, your time is up, sir.  We are going to get to –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, you’re going to – I have to respond to that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, you both had 2 minutes, sir.

DONALD TRUMP:   Excuse me.  He made a statement.

CHRIS WALLACE:   So did you.

DONALD TRUMP:   People want their schools – no, people want their schools open.  They don’t want to be shut down.  They don’t want their states shut down.  They want their restaurants.  I look at New York.  It’s so sad what’s happening in New York.  It’s almost like a ghost town and I’m not sure it can ever recover what they’ve done in New York.  People want their places open.  They want to get back to their lives.

JOE BIDEN:   People –

DONALD TRUMP:   They’ll be careful –

JOE BIDEN:   – want to be safe.

DONALD TRUMP:   – but they want their schools open.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   People want to be safe.

DONALD TRUMP:   I’m the one that brought back football.  By the way I brought back Big Ten football.  It was me, and I’m very happy to do it and –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, that’s –

DONALD TRUMP:   – the people of Ohio are very proud of me, and you know how I found out?  When he took a phony ad. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentleman, we’re going to get to your economic plans going forward in a moment, but first, Mr. President, as you well know, there’s a new report that in 2016, the year you were elected President, and 2017, your first year as President, that you paid $750.00 a year in federal income tax each of those years.  I know that you pay a lot of other taxes, but I’m asking you the specific question.  Is it true that you paid $750.00 in federal income taxes each of those 2 years?

DONALD TRUMP:   I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax, and let me just tell you.  There was a story in one of the papers –

JOE BIDEN:   Show us your tax returns.

DONALD TRUMP:   I paid 38 million dollars one year.  I paid 27 million dollars one year.

JOE BIDEN:   Show us your tax returns.

DONALD TRUMP:   I went – uh, you’ll see it as soon as it’s finished.  You’ll see it.  You know if you wanted to, go to the board of elections.  There’s 118 page or so report that says everything I have, every bank I have.  I’m totally underleveraged because the assets are extremely good, and we have a very, we have a, I built a great company.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir, I’m asking you a specific question, which is –

DONALD TRUMP:   But let me tell you.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, I understand all of that –

JOE BIDEN:   Release your tax return.

DONALD TRUMP:   But let me –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, Mr. President. 

DONALD TRUMP:  Go ahead.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I’m asking you a question.  Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017?

DONALD TRUMP:   Millions of dollars.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You paid millions of dollars in –

DONALD TRUMP:   Millions of dollars.

CHRIS WALLACE:   So not 750?

DONALD TRUMP:   Millions of dollars, and you’ll get to see it.  And you’ll get to see –

JOE BIDEN:   When?

DONALD TRUMP:   But let me just tell you, Chris, let me just tell you something that it was the tax laws, I don’t want to pay tax.  Be, before I came here, I was a private developer.  I was a private businesspeople.  Like every other private person, unless they’re stupid, they go through the laws, and that’s what it is.  He passed a tax bill that gave us all these privileges for depreciation and for, uh, tax credits.  We built a building, and we get tax credits like the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.  You get a massive –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay –

DONALD TRUMP:   – which by the way was given to me by the Obama Administration if you can believe that.  Now the man got fired –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, no, no.

DONALD TRUMP:   – right after that happened, but –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President Biden, you want to respond?

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah, I do want to respond.  Look, the tax code that made him, that put him in a position that he pays less tax than a schoolteacher make, on the money a schoolteacher makes is because of him take – he says he’s smart because he can take advantage of the tax code, and he does take advantage of the tax code.  That’s why I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts, and we’re going to – I’m going to eliminate those tax cuts –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s okay.

JOE BIDEN: – and make sure that we invest in the people who in fact need the help.  People out there need help.

DONALD TRUMP:   But why didn’t you do it over, in the last 25 years?

JOE BIDEN:   Because you weren’t Pres –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, why didn’t you do it over the last 25 years?

JOE BIDEN:   Because you weren’t President screwing things up. 

DONALD TRUMP:   No, no, no.  You were a senator and the (inaudible) –

JOE BIDEN:   You are the worst President America has ever had.

DONALD TRUMP:   Hey Joe –

JOE BIDEN:   Come on.

DONALD TRUMP:   Let me, let me just say, Joe, I’ve done more in, in 47 months, I’ve done more than you’ve done in 47 years, Joe.  We’ve done things that you never even thought about –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, gentlemen –

DONALD TRUMP:   – including fixing the broken military that you gave me.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let’s, let’s –

DONALD TRUMP:   Including taking care of your vets.

CHRIS WALLACE:   We’re talking, Mr. President we’re talking about the economy.  I’d like to ask you about your plans going forward because, uh, Mr. Vice President, your economic plan if you were to be elected President, uh, focuses a lot on big government, big taxes, big spending.  I want to focus first on the taxes.  You propose more than 4 trillion dollars over a decade in new taxes on individuals making more than $400,000.00 a year and on corporations.  President Trump says that that kind of an increase in taxes is going to hurt the economy as it’s just coming out of a recession.

JOE BIDEN:   Well just take a look at what is the, the analysis done by Wall Street firms points out that my, my economic plan would create 7 million more jobs than his in 4 years, number 1, and number 2, it would create an additional 1 trillion dollars in economic growth because it would be about buying American.  That we have to, we’re going to make – the federal government spends 600 billion dollars a year on everything from ships to steel to buildings and the like, and under my proposal, we’re going to make sure that every penny of that has to be made by a company in America.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But respectfully sir, I’m talking about taxes, not spending.

JOE BIDEN:   Well, by the way, I’m going to eliminate a significant number of the tax.  I’m going to make the, the corporate tax 28 percent.  It shouldn’t be 21 percent.  You have 19 companies, 91 companies, federal, I mean, in the Fortune 500 who don’t pay a single penny in tax making billions of dollars.

DONALD TRUMP:   Why didn’t you do it –

JOE BIDEN:   Billions of dollars.

DONALD TRUMP:   – before when you were Vice President –

JOE BIDEN:   Because –

DONALD TRUMP:   – with Obama?

JOE BIDEN:   Because you in fact passed that.  That was your tax proposal –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s right.  I got it, I got it done and you know what happened?

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah, you got it done –

DONALD TRUMP:   Our economy boomed like it’s never boomed –

JOE BIDEN:   The economy is busted –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, let me, no let me –

JOE BIDEN:   Let me finish.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, let me pick up on that.  You would continue your free market approach, lower taxes, more de-regulation, correct?

JOE BIDEN:   Not lower tax to the American people.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But let me –

DONALD TRUMP:   Excuse me.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But in, but in Obama’s – you talk about the economy booming, it turns out that in Obama’s final 3 years as president, more jobs were created, a million and a half more jobs than in the first 3 years of your presidency.

DONALD TRUMP:   They had the slowest recovery since 19 – economic recovery, since 1929.  It was the slowest recovery.  Also, they took over something that was down here.  All you had to do was turn on the lights, and you picked up a lot, but they had the slowest economic recovery since 1929.  Let me tell you about the stock market.  When the stock market goes up that means jobs.  It also means 401(k)s.  If you got in, if you ever became president with your ideas, you want to terminate my tax, my taxes, I, I’ll tell you what, you’ll lose half of the companies that have poured in here will leave and plenty of –

JOE BIDEN:   Half of the companies –

DONALD TRUMP:   – companies that are already here, they’ll leave for other places. 

JOE BIDEN:   Hardly any companies have –

DONALD TRUMP:   They will leave, and you will have a depression, the likes of which you’ve never seen. 

JOE BIDEN:   Look, we inherited –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice President. 

JOE BIDEN:   – the worst recession short of a depression in American history.  I was asked to bring it back.  We were able to have an economic recovery that created the jobs you’re talking about.  We handed him a booming economy.  He blew it. 

DONALD TRUMP:   It wasn’t booming. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   He blew it, he blew it. 

DONALD TRUMP:   It wasn’t booming, it was –

JOE BIDEN:   It was a –

DONALD TRUMP:   It was the weakest recovery since 1929. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well sir, wait, wait.  Is it fair to, is it fair to say he blew it when in fact – 

DONALD TRUMP:   When COVID came in. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – there was record –

JOE BIDEN:   No. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – there was record low unemployment –

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   – before COVID? 

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah, but, be, because what he did, even before COVID, manufacturing went in the hole.  Manufacturing went in the hole, number one. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Excuse me, Chris, wait. 

JOE BIDEN:   Number 2. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Chris. 

JOE BIDEN:   Number 3. 

DONALD TRUMP:   They said it would take – no, you were on number two. 

JOE BIDEN:   No. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Chris, Chris, they said it would take a miracle –

JOE BIDEN:   This guy is a – 

DONALD TRUMP:   – to bring back manufacturing.  I brought back 700,000 jobs, they brought back nothing.  They gave up on manufacturing. 

JOE BIDEN:   We did not –

DONALD TRUMP:   Part of my standard fare. 

JOE BIDEN:   I’m the guy that brought back the automobile industry. 

DONALD TRUMP:   He totally gave up on manufacturing. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, let him –

JOE BIDEN:   We brought back – I was asked to bring back Chrysler and General Motors.  We brought them back right here in the state of Ohio and Michigan.  He blew it.  They’re gone.  He blew it, and in fact, they’re going out to –

DONALD TRUMP:   Ohio had the best year it’s ever had last year. 

JOE BIDEN:   No. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Michigan had the best year they’ve ever had. 

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Many car companies came in from Germany, from Japan. 

JOE BIDEN:   Not, no. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Went to Michigan, went to Ohio. 

JOE BIDEN:   No, they’re not having the best –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no.  Mr. Vice. 

DONALD TRUMP:   And they didn’t come here with you. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait, wait.  Mr. Vice President, go ahead. 

JOE BIDEN:   And so, you take a look at what he’s actually done.  He’s done very little.  And it’s trade deals, they’re the same way.  He talks about these great trade deals.  You know he talks about the art of the deal; China has made, they perfected the art of the steal.  We have a higher deficit with China now than we did before.  We have the highest def, trade deficit with Mexico. 

DONALD TRUMP:   China ate your lunch. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, gentlemen. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Down 18 percent. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   In, in, in –

DONALD TRUMP:   China ate your lunch, Joe.  And no wonder, your son goes in and he takes out, well he takes out –

JOE BIDEN:   No. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Billions of dollars, takes out billions of dollars to manage.  He makes millions of dollars, and also –

JOE BIDEN:   Simply not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   – while we’re at it –

JOE BIDEN:   Not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   – why is it, just out of curiosity, the mayor of Moscow’s wife gave your son 3 ½ million dollars?

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   What did he do to deserve it? 

JOE BIDEN:   That is –

DONALD TRUMP:   What did he do with (inaudible) – 

JOE BIDEN:   None of that –

DONALD TRUMP:   – to deserve $183,000.00?

JOE BIDEN:   – is true. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   You have asked, sir, you have asked the question.  Let him answer. 

JOE BIDEN:   None of that is true.  Not, none of that is true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh really?  He didn’t get 3 ½ million? 

JOE BIDEN:   It’s totally, totally –

CHRIS WALLACE:   But no, hey, Mr. President? 

JOE BIDEN:   It’s totally –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, please, you’ve asked a question. 

JOE BIDEN:   Totally discredited.  Totally discredited, and by the way –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well wait, he didn’t get 3 ½ million dollars, Joe? 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice – Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   He got 3 ½ million dollars. 

JOE BIDEN:   It is not true. 

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh really?  Oh. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President. 

JOE BIDEN:   But –

CHRIS WALLACE:   It’s an, it’s an open discussion.  Please. 

JOE BIDEN:   No.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You asked, you –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s a fact. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, you have raised an issue.  Let the, Mr. Vice President answer. 

JOE BIDEN:   It has been totally discredited.

DONALD TRUMP:   Did Burisma pay him 183,000 a month –

JOE BIDEN:   It was a –

DONALD TRUMP:   – with no experience in energy?

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, no job –

JOE BIDEN:   My son did nothing wrong at Burisma –

DONALD TRUMP:   I think he did.

JOE BIDEN:   – and –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

JOE BIDEN:   – the only guy that –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – let him answer.

JOE BIDEN:   He doesn’t want to let me answer, because he knows I have the truth.  His, his position has been totally, thoroughly discredited –

DONALD TRUMP:   By who?  The media.

JOE BIDEN:   – by everybody.  Well, by the media.

DONALD TRUMP:   By the media –

JOE BIDEN:   By our allies.

DONALD TRUMP:   – because they refuse to –

JOE BIDEN:   By the World Bank.

DONALD TRUMP:   – talk about it, because they’re embarrassed. 

JOE BIDEN:   By the, by everyone has discredited it.  Matter of fact –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Excuse me.

JOE BIDEN:   – a matter of fact, even the people –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

JOE BIDEN:   – who testified –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – please stop.

JOE BIDEN:   – under oath, under oath –

DONALD TRUMP:   So, let me ask you this, Joe –

JOE BIDEN:   – and, and, under oath –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, go ahead.

DONALD TRUMP:   Why –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr., I’m listening to you.

JOE BIDEN:   Even, even people under –

DONALD TRUMP:   He got 3 ½ million dollars from –

JOE BIDEN:   He, he testified –

DONALD TRUMP:   – Moscow.

JOE BIDEN:   He testified under oath, and his administration said I did my job, and I did it very well.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh really?

JOE BIDEN:   I’m really honored –

DONALD TRUMP:   I’d, I’d like to know who they are.

JOE BIDEN:   Every, well, I’ll give you the list of –

DONALD TRUMP:   I’ll fire them.

JOE BIDEN:   – the people who testified.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, go ahead, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Sure, you’ve, they’ve, you’ve already fired most of them, because they did a good job.

DONALD TRUMP:   Some, some people don’t do a good job.

JOE BIDEN:   Well, here’s, with you –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead.  You’ve got the final – wait a minute, you get the final word, Mr. –

JOE BIDEN:   Well, it’s hard to get any word in with this clown, excuse me, this, this person.

DONALD TRUMP:   Hey, hey, let me just say, Joe.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, no, Mr. President.

JOE BIDEN:   No.

DONALD TRUMP:   3 ½ million, Joe.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, Mr. President.

JOE BIDEN:   That is simply –

DONALD TRUMP:   Why did he deserve –

JOE BIDEN:   – not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   – 3 ½ million from Moscow?

JOE BIDEN:   Look, here’s the deal.  We want to talk about families and ethics.  I don’t want to do that.  I mean, his family, we could talk about all night.  His family’s already –

DONALD TRUMP:   My family –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, no, let him, let him –

JOE BIDEN:   – already wrote –

DONALD TRUMP:   My family lost a fortune by coming down and helping us with government –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead.  Go ahead.  Go ahead, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   And that’s, that’s such a –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and every, and they’re right here.

JOE BIDEN:   That’s a –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President?

JOE BIDEN:   That’s such a great –

DONALD TRUMP:   Every single one of them lost a  –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President?

JOE BIDEN:   This is not about my family or his family.

DONALD TRUMP:   – fortune helping us with government.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s about your family, the American people.

DONALD TRUMP:   They didn’t collect 3 1/2 million for nothing.

JOE BIDEN:   He doesn’t – that’s not true.  He doesn’t want to talk about what you need.  You, the American people.  It’s about you.  That’s what we’re talking about here.

DONALD TRUMP:   Then, he shouldn’t have taken –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.  That’s the end of this –

DONALD TRUMP:   He shouldn’t have taken the money.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s not about him.

CHRIS WALLACE:   That’s the end of this segment.  We’re move, we’re moving on.

JOE BIDEN:   He didn’t take the money.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, it’s, this –

CHRIS WALLACE:   It, it’s, no –

DONALD TRUMP:   Can I be honest?  It’s a very important question.

JOE BIDEN:   Try to be honest.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, I, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   He stood up.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No.

DONALD TRUMP:   He stood up –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, the answer to the question is no.

DONALD TRUMP:   – and he threatened Ukraine –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, uh, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   – with a billion dollars –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Sir?

JOE BIDEN:   That is –

DONALD TRUMP:   – if you don’t get rid of –

JOE BIDEN:   – absolutely –

CHRIS WALLACE:   You know what?  You’re –

JOE BIDEN:   – not true.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Stop.

DONALD TRUMP:   You’re on tape doing it.  You’re on tape.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You’re, you’re going to have –

JOE BIDEN:   Not true.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen!

JOE BIDEN:   Is –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I hate to raise my voice –

DONALD TRUMP:   He’s on tape.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – but it seems to be, why shouldn’t I be different than the two of you?  So, here’s the deal.

JOE BIDEN:   Very good point.

CHRIS WALLACE:   We have five, six segments.  We have ended that segment.  We’re going to go to the next segment.  In that segment, you each are going to have 2 uninterrupted moments.  In those 2 uninterrupted minutes, Mr. President, you can say anything you want.  I’m going to ask a question about race, but if you want to answer about something else, go ahead, but we – I think that the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions.  I’m, I’m appealing to you, sir, to do that.

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, and him, too.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting than he has.

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, that’s all right, but he does plenty.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, less than, sir, less than –

DONALD TRUMP:   He does plenty.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, less than you have.  Let’s please continue on.  The issue of race.  Vice President Biden, you say that President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville 3 years ago when he talked about very fine people on both sides was what directly led you to launch this run for president.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh yeah, sure.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump, you have often said that you believe you have done more for Black Americans than any president with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.

DONALD TRUMP:   True.

CHRIS WALLACE:   My question for the two of you is, why should voters trust you rather than your opponent to deal with the race issues facing this country over the next 4 years?  Vice President Biden, you go first.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s about equity and equality.  It’s about decency.  It’s about the constitution, and we have never walked away from trying to require equity for everyone, equality for the whole of America, but we’ve never accomplished it, but we’ve never walked away from it like he has done.  It is true.  The reason I got in the race is when those people – close your eyes.  Remember what those people looked like coming out of the fields carrying torches, their veins bulging, spewing, just spewing anti-Semitic bile and accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan.  A young woman got killed, and they asked the president what he thought.  He said there were very fine people on both sides.  No president’s ever said –

DONALD TRUMP:   Finish the statement.

JOE BIDEN:   – anything like that.

DONALD TRUMP:   Finish the statement.

CHRIS WALLACE:   It, it, it is his minute, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Now second point I’d make to you is that when Floyd was killed, when Mr. Floyd was killed, there was a peaceful protest in front of the White House.  What did he do?  He came out of his bunker, had the military do, use teargas on them, so he could walk across to a church and hold up a Bible, and then what happened after that?  The bishop of that very church said that it was a disgrace.  The general who was with him said he only, all he ever wants to do is divide people, not unite people at all.  This is a president who has used everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred, racist division.  This is a man who in fact – you talk about helping African Americans?  1 in 1,000 African Americans has been killed because of the coronavirus, and if he doesn’t do something quickly, by the end of the year, 1 in 500 will have been killed.  1 in 500 African Americans.  This man, this man is the, is the savior of African Americans?  This man cares at all?  This man’s done virtually nothing.  Look, the fact is that you have to look at what he talks about.  You have to look at what he did, and what he did has been disastrous for the African American community.

DONALD TRUMP:   So –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Pres, President Trump, you have 2 minutes.  Why should Americans trust you over your opponent to deal with racism?

DONALD TRUMP:   He did a crime bill 1994 where you call them super-predators, African Americans are super-predators, and they’ve never –

JOE BIDEN:   I didn’t say that.

DONALD TRUMP:   – forgotten it.  They’ve never forgotten it, Joe.

JOE BIDEN:   I’ve never said it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, no, sir, it’s his 2 minutes.

DONALD TRUMP:   So, you did that, and they call you super-predator, and I’m letting people out of jail now that – you have treated the African American population community, you have treated the Black community about as bad as anybody in this country.  You did the 19 – and that’s why, if you look at the polls, I’m doing better than any Republican has done in a long time, because they saw what you did.  You called them super-predators, and you’ve called them worse than that, because you look back at your testimony over the years.  You’ve called them a lot worse than that.  As far as the church is concerned and as far as the generals are concerned, we just got the support of 200 mil, 250 military leaders and generals, total support.  Law enforcement, almost every law enforcement group in the United States.  I have Florida.  I have Texas.  I have Ohio.  I have every – excuse me, Portland.  The sheriff just came out today, and he said I support President Trump.  I don’t think you have any law enforcement.  You can’t even say the word law enforcement, because if you say those words, you’re going to lose all of your radical left supports.  And why aren’t you saying those words, Joe?  Why don’t you say the words law enforcement?  Because, you know what?  If they called us in Portland, we would put out that fire in a half an hour, but they won’t do it, because they’re run by radical left Democrats.  If you look at Chicago, if you look at any place you want to look.  Seattle, they heard we were coming in the following day, and they put up their hands, and we got back Seattle.  Minneapolis, we got it back, Joe, because we believe law and order, but you don’t.  The top ten cities, and just about the top 40 cities, are run by Democrats and in many cases radical left, and they’ve got you wrapped around their finger, Joe, to a point where you don’t want to say anything about law and order, and I’ll tell you what, the people of this country want and demand law and order, and you’re afraid to even say it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.  I want to, I want to return to the question of race.  Vice President Biden, after the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case decided not to charge any of the police with homicide, you said it raises the question, quote, “whether justice could be equally applied in America.”  Do you believe that there is a separate but unequal system of justice for Blacks in this country?

JOE BIDEN:   Yes, there is.  There’s a systemic injustice in this country.  In education and work and in, in law enforcement, and, and the, and the way in which it’s enforced, but look, the vast majority of police officers are good, decent, honorable men and women.  They risk their lives every day to take care of us.  But there are some bad apples, and when they occur, when they find them, they have to be sorted out.  They have to be held accountable.  They have to be held accountable, and what I’m going to do as President of the United States is call together an entire group of people at the White House.  Everything from the civil rights groups to the police officers to the police chiefs, and we’re going to work this out.  We’re going to work this out, so we change the way in which we have more transparency, and when these things happen – these cops aren’t happy to see what happened to, to, to George Floyd.  These cops aren’t happy to see what happened to Breonna Taylor.  Most don’t like it, but we have to have a system where people are held accountable when – and by the way, violence in response is never appropriate, never appropriate.  Peaceful protest is.  Violence is never appropriate.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, Mr. –

DONALD TRUMP:   What is peaceful protest?

CHRIS WALLACE:   – President?

DONALD TRUMP:   When they run through the middle of the town –

CHRIS WALLACE:   President, President Trump?

DONALD TRUMP:   – and burn down your stores –

CHRIS WALLACE:   President, I, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and kill people all over the place?

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump?

JOE BIDEN:   That is not peaceful –

DONALD TRUMP:   And you say peaceful protests.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump, I’m not asking –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, it’s not, but you say it is.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump –

JOE BIDEN:   I did not say that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I’d like to continue with the issue of race, and I promise, we’re going to get to the issue of law and order –

DONALD TRUMP:   Please.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – in a moment.  This month, your administration, uh, directed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity training that addresses white privilege or critical race theory.  Why did you decide to do that, to end racial sensitivity training, and do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   I ended it, because it’s racist.  I ended it, because a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane, that it was a radical, uh, revolution that was taking place in our military, uh, in our schools, all over the place, and you know it and so does everybody else –

CHRIS WALLACE:   What, what, what is radical about –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and he would know.

CHRIS WALLACE:   What is radical about –

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, it was totally radical.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – racial sensitivity training, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   If you were a certain person, you had no status in life.  It was sort of a reversal, and if you look at the people, we were paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach very bad ideas, and frankly, very sick ideas, and, and really, they were teaching people to hate our country, and I’m not going to do that.  I’m not going to allow that to happen.  We have to go back to the core values of this country.  They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, it’s a racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen.

JOE BIDEN:   No one’s doing that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President Biden?

JOE BIDEN:   Nobody’s doing that.  He’s just, he’s the racist.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, you, you, you just don’t know.

JOE BIDEN:   Here’s the deal.  I, I know a lot more about this than you do.

DONALD TRUMP:   You don’t know.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let, let him finish.

JOE BIDEN:   The fact is that there is racial insensitivity.  People have to be made aware of what other people feel like, what, what, what insults them, what is demeaning to them.  It’s important that people know.  They don’t want to, many people don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings, but it makes a big difference.  It makes a gigantic difference in the way a child is able to grow up and have a sense of self-esteem.  It’s a little bit like how this guy and, and his friends look down on so many people.  They look down their nose on people like Irish Catholics like me.  I grew up in Scranton.  They look down on people who don’t have money.  They look down on people who are of a different faith.  They look down on people who are a different color.  In fact, we’re all Americans.  The only way we’re going to bring this country together is bring everybody together.  There’s nothing we cannot do if we do it together.  We can take this on, and we can defeat racism in America.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President, I mean, President Trump, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   During the Obama-Biden administration, there was tremendous division.  There was hatred.  You look at, uh, Ferguson.  You look at, or you go to very, many places.  Look at Oakland.  Look at what happened in Oakland.  Look at what happened in Baltimore.  Look what happened – and frankly it was more violent than what I’m even seeing now.

JOE BIDEN:   Oh my lord.

DONALD TRUMP:   But the reason is that the –

JOE BIDEN:   This is ridiculous.

DONALD TRUMP:   – Democrats that run these –

JOE BIDEN:   Absolutely ridiculous.

DONALD TRUMP:   – cities, don’t want to talk like you about law and order.

JOE BIDEN:   Violent crime –

DONALD TRUMP:   You still haven’t mentioned –

JOE BIDEN:   – violent crime –

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you in favor of law and order?

JOE BIDEN:   I’m in favor of law.  You following it –

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you in favor of law and order?

JOE BIDEN:   – and a little bit of order.

DONALD TRUMP:   Go ahead, say it, Joe.

JOE BIDEN:   Yes, I’m in favor of –

CHRIS WALLACE:   You asked a question.  Let him finish.

JOE BIDEN:   – law and order.

DONALD TRUMP:   He loses the left –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let him answer.

JOE BIDEN:   Law and order with justice where people get treated fairly.

DONALD TRUMP:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   And the fact of the matter is violent crime went down 17 percent, 15 percent in our administration.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s gone up on his watch.

DONALD TRUMP:   It went down much more in ours.

JOE BIDEN:   He, he had –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, we’re, we’re not –

JOE BIDEN:   He is President of the United States of America.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President –

DONALD TRUMP:   (inaudible) China.  We’re breaking every record in the book.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, you’re going to be very happy because we’re now going to talk about law and order.

DONALD TRUMP:   The places we had trouble were Democratic run cities. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   That’s exactly my question.  There has been a dramatic increase in homicides in America this summer particularly, and you often blame that on Democratic mayors and Democratic governors, but in fact, there have been equivalent spikes in Republican-led cities like Tulsa and Fort Worth.  So the question is, is this really a party issue?

DONALD TRUMP:   I think it’s a party issue.  You can bring in a couple of examples but if you look at Chicago, what’s going on in Chicago where, uh, 53 people were shot and 8 died.  Shot.  If you look at New York, where it’s going up like nobody has ever seen anything.  The numbers are going up 100, 150, 200 percent, uh, crime –

JOE BIDEN:   Republican cities.

DONALD TRUMP:   It is, it is crazy what’s going on. 

JOE BIDEN:   Republican –

DONALD TRUMP:   And he doesn’t want to say law and order because he can’t, because he’ll lose his radical left supporters, and once he does that, it’s over with.  But if he ever got to run this country, and they ran it the way he would want to run it, we would have –

JOE BIDEN:   We would run it the way –

DONALD TRUMP:   – our suburbs would be gone.  By the way, our suburbs would be gone, and you would see problems like you’ve never seen before.

JOE BIDEN:   He wouldn’t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, I know suburbs.

JOE BIDEN:   He would not. 

DONALD TRUMP:   So much better than you do.

JOE BIDEN:   I was raised, I was –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go, go ahead, wait a minute. 

JOE BIDEN:   I was raised in the suburbs.  This is not 1950.  All these dog whistles and racism don’t work anymore.  Suburbs are by and large integrated.  There is many people today driving their kids to soccer practice and/or to, uh, Black and White and Hispanic in the same car as there have been any time in, in the past.  What’s, what really is a threat to the suburbs and their safety is his failure to deal with COVID.  They’re dying in the suburbs.  His failure to deal with the environment.  They’re being flooded.  They’re being burned out, because his –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   – refusal to do any.  That’s why the suburbs are in trouble.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I do want to talk about this issue of law and order though and in the joint recommendation that came from the Biden-Bernie Sanders task force, you talked about quote reimagining policing.

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah.

CHRIS WALLACE:   First of all, what is reimagining policing mean and do you support –

JOE BIDEN:   It means –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – uh, uh, let me, if I might finish the question, what is reimagining policing mean, and do you support the Black Lives Matter, uh, call for, uh, for community control of policing?

JOE BIDEN:   Look, what I support is the police having the opportunity to deal with the problems they face.  And I’m not, I’m totally opposed to defunding the police officers.  As a matter of fact, police, local police – the only one defunding in his budget calls for a 400 million dollar cut in local law enforcement assistance.  They need more assistance.  They need when they show up for a 911 call to have someone with them as a psychologist or psychiatrist to keep them from having to use force and be able to talk people down.  We have to have community policing like we had before, where the officers get to know the people in the communities.  That’s when crime went down.  It didn’t go up.  It went down.  And so we have to be engaged –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s not what they’re talking about, Chris.

JOE BIDEN:   That, that –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s not what they’re talking about. 

JOE BIDEN:   That’s exactly –

DONALD TRUMP:   He’s talking about the defunding the police.

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   He doesn’t have any law – he has no law enforcement support.

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   Almost nothing.

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not, that, look –

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, really?  Who do you have?  Name one group that supports you.  Name one group that came out and supported you.  Go ahead.

JOE BIDEN:   Look –

DONALD TRUMP:   Think.  We have time.

JOE BIDEN:   We don’t have time to do anything except –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, folks.

DONALD TRUMP:   Name one law enforcement group –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Folks.

DONALD TRUMP:   – that came out and supported you.

CHRIS WALLACE:   So I think, I think gentlemen, I’m going to take back the moderator’s role.

DONALD TRUMP:   There aren’t.  I don’t think there are any. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   And I want, and I want to get to another subject, which is the issue of protests in many cities that have turned violent.  In Portland, Oregon, especially, we had a, more than 100 straight days of protests, which I think you would agree – you talk about peaceful protests, many of those turned into riots.  Mr. Vice President, you say that people who commit crimes should be held accountable.  The question I have though is, as the Democratic nominee, and earlier tonight you said that you are the Democratic Party right now, have you ever called the Democratic mayor of Portland or the Democratic governor of Oregon and said, hey, you got to stop this.  Bring in the National Guard, do whatever it takes, but you stop the days and months of violence in Portland?

JOE BIDEN:   I don’t hold public office now.  I am a former Vice President.  I’ve made it clear.  I made it clear in my public statements that the violence should be prosecuted.  It should be prosecuted and anyone who commits it should prosecuted.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But you never called for the people, the leaders –

DONALD TRUMP:   (Inaudible).  He’s never said that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Excuse me, sir.  You have never called for the leaders in Portland and in Oregon to call in –

JOE BIDEN:   Because –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – bring in the National Guard and not go 100 days of riots.

JOE BIDEN:   They can in fact take care of it if he’d just stay out of the way.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, oh really.

JOE BIDEN:   Look here.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh really.

JOE BIDEN:   Here’s the thing.

DONALD TRUMP:   I sent –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Now wait a minute.  I asked him a question.  No.

DONALD TRUMP:   I sent in the U.S. Marshals to get the killer of the young man in the middle of the street.  They shot him and –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

DONALD TRUMP:   – for 3 days –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr., President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP:   – Portland wouldn’t do anything.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump.  I interrupted –

DONALD TRUMP:   I had to send in the U.S. Marshals –

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP:   – and they took care of business.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   And, and by the way, you know, his own former spokesperson said, you know, riots and chaos and violence help his cause.  That’s what this is all about.

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t know who said that.

JOE BIDEN:   I do.

DONALD TRUMP:   Who?

JOE BIDEN:   I think it, Kellyanne Conway.

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t think she said that.

JOE BIDEN:   She said that. 

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t know.

JOE BIDEN:   And so here’s the point.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

JOE BIDEN:   But here’s the point.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead.

JOE BIDEN:   The point is that, that’s what he just keeps trying to rile everything up.  He doesn’t want to calm things down.  Instead of going in and talking to people and saying let’s get everybody together, figure out how to deal with this.  What’s he do?  He just pours gasoline in the fire constantly.  And every single solitary time –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, and, and to end this, button up this segment, I’m going to give you a minute to answer, sir.  You have repeatedly criticized –

DONALD TRUMP:   I have to answer his statement. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, uh, you have repeatedly –

DONALD TRUMP:   But his statement.  Wait, just one second.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No.  You’ve been talking (inaudible) –

DONALD TRUMP:   He made a statement.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I’m asking you a question.

DONALD TRUMP:   I would love to end it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, sir.

DONALD TRUMP:   I would love to end it –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, you know, if you want to switch seats –

DONALD TRUMP:   We could very quickly –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – we could do that.  But I’m, no, I’m –

DONALD TRUMP:   – send in the National Guard, it would be over.  There’d be no problem.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   But they don’t want to accept the National Guard.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You have repeatedly criticized the, the Vice President for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left wing –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s right.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – extremist groups, but are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups –

DONALD TRUMP:   Sure.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?

DONALD TRUMP:   Sure, I’m willing to do that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Are you prepared specifically –

JOE BIDEN:   Then do it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead, sir.

DONALD TRUMP:   I would say, I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing.  Not from the right wing.

CHRIS WALLACE:   So what do you, what do you –

DONALD TRUMP:   If you look –

CHRIS WALLACE:   What are you saying?

DONALD TRUMP:   I’m, I’m willing to do anything.  I want to see peace.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well then do it, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Say it.  Do it.  Say it.

DONALD TRUMP:   Do you want to call them, what do you want to call them?  Give me a name, give me a name –

CHRIS WALLACE:   White supremacists and right radicals –

JOE BIDEN:   White supremacists.  Proud Boys.

DONALD TRUMP:   Go ahead, who would you like me to condemn?

CHRIS WALLACE:   White supremacists and (inaudible). 

DONALD TRUMP:   The Proud Boys?  Stand back and standby, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what.  Somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right wing problem. 

JOE BIDEN:   His own, his own –

DONALD TRUMP:   This is a left wing problem.

JOE BIDEN:   – FBI director said –

DONALD TRUMP:   This is a left wing problem.

JOE BIDEN:   – the threat comes from white supremacists.  Antifa’s an idea, not an organization.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, you got to be kidding me.

JOE BIDEN:   – not militia.  That’s what his FBI –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s an idea, okay.

JOE BIDEN:   – his FBI director said.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen, we’re going to have to – no, no, then, we’re done.

DONALD TRUMP:   Well then, you know what, he’s wrong.

CHRIS WALLACE:   We’re done, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   Everybody, everybody (inaudible) your administration.

CHRIS WALLACE:   We’re moving onto the next, we’re moving –

DONALD TRUMP:   When a bat hits you over the head, that’s not an idea.

JOE BIDEN:   Everybody in your administration –

DONALD TRUMP:   Antifa is bad.

JOE BIDEN:   – tells you the truth has a bad, has a bad idea.

DONALD TRUMP:   Can I tell you what –

JOE BIDEN:   You have no ideas that are –

DONALD TRUMP:   Antifa, Antifa is a dangerous radical group.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, gentlemen, we’re now moving onto the Trump and Biden records.

DONALD TRUMP:   And you ought to be careful with them.  They’ll overthrow you.

CHRIS WALLACE:   When a president – I’m going to ask a question – when the president seeks a second term, it is generally a referendum on his record, but Vice President Biden, you like to quote one of your dad’s sayings which is, “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative”, and in this case, sir, you are the alternative.  Looking at both of your records, I’m going to ask each of you, why should voters elect you president over your opponent in this segment.  President Trump, you go first, 2 minutes.

DONALD TRUMP:   Because there has never been an administration or president who has done more than I’ve done in a period of 3 ½ years, and that’s despite the impeachment hoax, and you saw what happened today with Hilary Clinton, where it was a whole big con job.  But despite going through all of these things, where I had to fight both flanks and behind me and above.  There has never been an administration that’s done what I’ve done.  The greatest – before COVID came in, the greatest economy in history, lowest unemployment numbers.  Everything was good, everything was going – and by the way, there was unity going to happen.  People were calling me for the first time in years, they were calling and they were saying, it’s time maybe, and then what happened?  We got hit, but now we’re building it back up again.  A rebuilding of the military, including Space Force and all of the other things.  A fixing of the, the VA, which was a mess under him.  308,000 people died because they didn’t have proper healthcare.  He, he was a mess. And we now got a 91 percent approval rating at the VA.  Our vets.  We take care of our vets.  But we’ve rebuilt our military.  The job that we’ve done – and, and I’ll tell you something some people say may be the most important.  By the end of the first term, I’ll have approximately 300 federal judges and court of appeals judges, 300, and hopefully three great Supreme Court judges, justices.  That is a record the likes of which very few people – and you know one of the reasons I’ll have so many judges?  Because President Obama and him left me 128 judges to fill.  When you leave office, you don’t leave any judges.  That’s, like, you just don’t do that.  They left 128 openings, and if I were a member of his party, because they have a little different philosophy, I’d say if you left us 128 openings, you can’t be a good president, you can’t be a good vice president.  But I want to thank you, because it gives us almost – it’ll probably be above that number by the end of this term.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I’m sorry.

DONALD TRUMP:   300 judges.  It’s a record.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Looking at both your records, why should voters elect you president as opposed to President Trump?

JOE BIDEN:   This president –

CHRIS WALLACE:   You have 2 minutes uninterrupted.

JOE BIDEN:   Under this president, we’ve become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided and more violent.  When I was vice president, we inherited a recession.  I was asked to fix it.  I did, we left him a booming economy, and he caused the recession.  With regard to being weaker, the fact is that I’ve gone head to head with Putin, and made it clear to him we’re not going to take any of his stuff.  He’s Putin’s puppy.  He still refuses to even say anything to Putin about the bounty on the heads of American soldiers.

DONALD TRUMP:   Your son got $3 ½ million.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, no.  Not –

JOE BIDEN:   And by the way, my son –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, wait a minute.  Mr. President, your campaign agreed to, both sides would get 2 minutes answers uninterrupted.  Well your, your side agreed to it, and why don’t you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule, okay sir?

JOE BIDEN:   He never keeps his word.  We can add back 30 seconds –

DONALD TRUMP:   Because –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, no, I’m not asking.  That was a rhetorical question.

DONALD TRUMP:   (Inaudible)

JOE BIDEN:   Can you, can you add back 30 seconds?

CHRIS WALLACE:   Yeah, yes, you may have –

JOE BIDEN:   All right.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead.

JOE BIDEN:   So, thirdly, we’re poorer.  The billionaires have gotten much, much more wealthy by a tune of over 3- to $400 billion more just since COVID.  You in the home, you got less.  You’re in more trouble than you were before.  In terms of being more violent, when we were in office, there were 15 percent less violence in America than there is today.  He’s President of United States.  It’s on his watch.  And with regard to more divided, the nation can’t stay divided.  We can’t be this way.  And speaking of my son.  The way you talk about the military, the way you talk about them being losers and being and, and, and, and, and, and just being suckers – my son was in Iraq.  He spent a year there.  He got, he got the Bronze Star.  He got the Conspicuous Service Medal.  He was not a loser.  He was a patriot, and the people left behind there –

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh really?

JOE BIDEN:   – were heroes.

DONALD TRUMP:   Really?

JOE BIDEN:   And I resent like hell –

DONALD TRUMP:   Are you talking about Hunter?  Are you talking about Hunter?

JOE BIDEN:   I’m talking of my son, Beau Biden.  You’re talking about being –

DONALD TRUMP:   I don’t know, I don’t know Beau.  I know Hunter. 

JOE BIDEN:   Yeah, you know Beau.

DONALD TRUMP:   Hunter got thrown, Hunter got thrown out of the military.  He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged –

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not true, he wasn’t dishonorably.

DONALD TRUMP:   – for cocaine use, and he didn’t have a job until you became Vice President, and once you became Vice President –

JOE BIDEN:   None of that is true.

DONALD TRUMP:   – he made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow and –

JOE BIDEN:   That is simply not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   – and various other places.

JOE BIDEN:   My son –

DONALD TRUMP:   He made a fortune, and he didn’t have a job.

JOE BIDEN:   My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people we know at home, had a drug problem.  He’s overtaken it.  He’s, he’s, he’s fixed it.  He’s worked on it, and I’m proud of him.  I’m proud of my son.

DONALD TRUMP:   But why was he given tens of millions of dollars?

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, all right.

JOE BIDEN:   But he wasn’t given tens of millions of dollars

DONALD TRUMP:   He was given tens of millions of dollars.

JOE BIDEN:   That is totally, that’s been totally discredited.

CHRIS WALLACE:   President Trump, President Trump.

JOE BIDEN:   It’s already been totally discredited.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You’ve already, you’ve already – we’ve already, we’ve both, we’ve already been through this.  I think the American people would rather hear about more substantial objections. 

DONALD TRUMP:   So do I.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, you know, as the moderator, sir, I’m going to make a judgment call here.

DONALD TRUMP:   I know, but when somebody gets $3 ½ million from the mayor of Moscow –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay, right.  Let’s talk about, let’s talk about –

DONALD TRUMP:   – I think it’s a terrible thing.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen.

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true, that report is totally discredited.

DONALD TRUMP:   Why did he get it?

CHRIS WALLACE:   I, I think –

JOE BIDEN:   Mitt Romney on that committee said it wasn’t worth tax payer’s money.  That report is written for a political reason. 

CHRIS WALLACE:   You know, I’d like to talk about climate change.

JOE BIDEN:   So would I.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.  The forest fires in the west are raging now.  They have burned millions of acres.  They have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.  When state officials there blame the fires on climate change, Mr. President, you said, “I don’t think the science knows”.  Over your 4 years, you have pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord.  You have rolled back a number of Obama environmental records.  What do you believe about the science of climate change, and what will you do in the next 4 years to confront it?

DONALD TRUMP:   I want crystal clean water and air.  I want beautiful clean air.  We have now the lowest carbon.  If you look at our numbers right now, we are doing phenomenally, but I haven’t destroyed our businesses.  Our businesses aren’t put out of commission.  If you look at the Paris Accord, it was a disaster from our standpoint, and people are actually very happy about what’s going on, because our businesses are doing well.  As far as the fires are concerned, you need forest management in addition to everything else.  The forest floors are loaded up with trees, dead trees that are years old, and they’re like tinder, and leaves and everything else.  You drop a cigarette in there, the whole forest burns down.  You’ve got to have forest management.

CHRIS WALLACE:   What do you believe –

DONALD TRUMP:   You’ve got to have guts.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – what do you believe about the science of climate change, sir?

DONALD TRUMP:   Uh, I believe that we have to do everything we can to have immaculate air, immaculate water, and do whatever else we can that’s good.  You know, we’re planting a billion trees, the Billion Tree Project, and it’s very exciting for a lot of people.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Do you believe that, that human pollution, gas, greenhouse gas emissions contributes to the global warming of –

DONALD TRUMP:   I think a lot of things do, but –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – this planet?

DONALD TRUMP:   – I think to an extent, yes.  I think to an extent, yes, but I also think we have to do better management of our forests.  Every year I get the call California’s burning, California is burning.  If that was cleaned, if that were, if you had forest management, good forest management, you wouldn’t be getting those calls.  You know, in Europe, they live, they have forest cities, they’re called forest cities.  They maintain their forests.  They manage their forests.  I was with the head of a major country, it’s a forest city.  He said, “Sir, we have trees that are far more, they, they ignite much easier than California.  There shouldn’t be that problem.”  I spoke with the Governor about it.  I’m getting along very well with the Governor, but I said you know, at some point, you can’t every year have hundreds of thousands of acres of land just burned to the ground.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But, sir, but –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s burning down because of a lack of management.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – but sir, if you believe in the science of climate change, why have you rolled back the Obama Clean Power Plan, which limited carbon emissions and power plants, why have you relaxed –

DONALD TRUMP:   Because it was driving energy prices through the sky.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Why have you relaxed fuel economy standards that are going to create more pollution from cars –

DONALD TRUMP:   Well, not really –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – and trucks?

DONALD TRUMP:   – because what’s happening is the car is much less expensive, and it’s a much safer car, and you’re talking about a tiny difference.  And then what would happen, because of the cost of the car, you would have at least double and triple the number of cars purchased.  We have the old slugs out there that are 10, 12 years old.  If you did that, the car would be safer, it would be much cheaper by $3,500.00 –

CHRIS WALLACE:   In, in the case of California, they’ve simply (inaudible) –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, but you would take a lot of cars off the market, because people would be able to afford a car.  Now, so, and by the way, we’re going to see how that turns out, but a lot of people agree with me, many people.  The car has gotten so expensive, because they have computers all over the place for an extra little bit –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   – of gasoline.  And by the, –

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and, and, and I’m okay with electric cars too.  I think, I’m all for electric cars.  I’ve given big incentives for electric cars, but what they’ve done in California is just crazy.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.  Vice President Biden, I’d like you to, to respond to the President’s climate change record, but I also want to ask you about, uh, a concern you proposed $2 trillion in green jobs.  You talk about new limits, not abolishing, but new limits on fracking, ending the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2035, and zero net emission of greenhouse gases by 2050.  The President says a lot of these things would tank the economy and cost millions of jobs.

JOE BIDEN:   He’s absolutely wrong, number one.  Number two, if in fact when, when, our, during our administration, the Recovery Act, I was able to, I was in charge, able to bring down the costs of renewable energy to cheaper than, or as cheap as, coal and gas and oil.  Nobody’s going to build another, uh, uh, coal fire plant in America.  No one’s going to build another oil fire plant in America.  They’re going to move to renewable energy, number one.  Number two, we’re going to make sure that we are able to take the federal fleet and turn it into a fleet that’s run on – they’re electric vehicles, making sure that we can do that.  We’re going to put 500,000 charging stations, and all of the highways that we’re going to be building in the future.  We’re going to build a economy that in fact is going to provide for the ability us to take 4 million buildings and make sure that they in fact are weatherized in a way that in fact will – they’ll, uh, they’ll emit significantly less gas and oil, because the heat will not be going out.  There’s so many things that we can do now to create thousands and thousands of jobs.  We can get to net zero in terms of energy production by 2035, not only not costing people jobs, creating jobs.  Creating millions of good paying jobs.  Not 15 bucks an hour, but prevailing wage by having a new infrastructure that in fact is green.  And the first thing I will do, I will rejoin the Paris Accord.  I will join the Paris Accord, because with us out of it, look what’s happening.  It’s all falling apart.  And talk about someone who has no, no relationship to, uh, with foreign policy, Brazil, the rain forests of Brazil are being torn down, are being ripped down.  More, more carbon is absorbed in that rain forest than every bit of carbon that’s emitted in the United States.  Instead of doing something about that, I would be gathering up and making sure we had the, the countries of the world coming up with $20 billion and say, here’s $20 billion.  Stop, stop, uh, tearing down the forest, and if you don’t, then you’re going to significant economic consequences –

CHRIS WALLACE:   What about, what about the argument that, uh, President Trump basically says that you have to balance environmental interests and economic interests, and he’s drawn his line –

JOE BIDEN:   Well, he hasn’t drawn a line.  He’s still, for example, make sure that we, he wants to make sure that methane’s not a problem.  We can, you, you can now emit more methane without it being a problem, methane.

DONALD TRUMP:   Not true.

JOE BIDEN:   This is a guy who says that you don’t have to have mileage standards for automobiles that exist now.  This is a guy who says that, well, uh, the fact that –

DONALD TRUMP:   Not true.  Not true.

JOE BIDEN:   – it, it, it, it’s all true and here’s the deal –

DONALD TRUMP:   He’s talking about the Green New Deal, and it’s not $2 billion or $20 billion as you said.

JOE BIDEN:   I’m –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s $100 trillion.

JOE BIDEN:   – I’m talking about the climate plan.

DONALD TRUMP:   Where they want to rip down buildings –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let him go for a minute, and then you can go.

DONALD TRUMP:   – and rebuild the building.

JOE BIDEN:   No.

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s the dumbest –

JOE BIDEN:   That is not –

DONALD TRUMP:   – most ridiculous –

JOE BIDEN:   – that is not the case.

DONALD TRUMP:   Where airplanes are out of business.

JOE BIDEN:   That’s not –

DONALD TRUMP:   Where two-car systems are out.

JOE BIDEN:   Not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   Where they want to take out the cows, too.

JOE BIDEN:   Not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   You know, that’s not true either, right?

JOE BIDEN:   Not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   This is a, this is a $100 trillion –

JOE BIDEN:   Simply, look –

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s more money than our –

JOE BIDEN:   That is –

DONALD TRUMP:   – country could make in 100 years –

JOE BIDEN:   – that is simply –

DONALD TRUMP:   – if we would –

JOE BIDEN:   – not the case.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, let me, let me –

DONALD TRUMP:   It will, it will destroy –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – let me, let me, because, because I actually –

DONALD TRUMP:   – our country.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait a minute, sir.  I actually have studied your plan, and it includes upgrading 4 million buildings –

DONALD TRUMP:   Yeah.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – weatherizing 2 million homes over 4 years, building 1 ½ million energy efficient homes, so the question becomes, the President is saying, I think some people who support the President would say that sounds like it’s going to cost a lot of money and hurt the economy.

JOE BIDEN:   What it’s going to do is going to create thousands and millions of jobs, good paying jobs.

DONALD TRUMP:   $100 trillion.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Let him finish, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   He doesn’t know how to do that.

DONALD TRUMP:   $100 trillion.

JOE BIDEN:   The fact is it’s going to create millions of good paying jobs, and these tax incentives to people, for people to weatherize, which he wants to get, get rid of.  It’s going to make the economy much safer.  Look how much we’re paying now to deal with the hurricanes with, to deal, deal with – by the way, he has an answer for hurricanes.  He said maybe we should drop a nuclear weapon on them and they may –

DONALD TRUMP:   I never said that at all.

JOE BIDEN:   Actually, he, he did say that.

DONALD TRUMP:   You made it up.

JOE BIDEN:   Uh, and here’s the deal –

DONALD TRUMP:   You make up a lot.

JOE BIDEN:   – we’re, we’re going to be in a position where we can create hard, hard good jobs by making sure the environment is clean, and we all are in better shape.  We spend billions of dollars now, billions of dollars on floods, hurricanes, rising seas.  We’re in real trouble.  Look what’s happened just in the Midwest with these storms that come through and wipe out entire sections and counties in Iowa.  That didn’t happen before, but because of global warming, we make up 15 percent of the world’s problem.  We in fact, but the, the rest of the world, we got to get them to come along, and that’s why we have to get back into, back into the Paris Accord.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, gentlemen, we –

DONALD TRUMP:   Wait a minute, Chris, so why didn’t he do it for 47 years?  You were Vice President.  Why –

JOE BIDEN:   For 47?

DONALD TRUMP:   – didn’t you get the world – China sends up real dirt into the air, Russia does, India does, they all do.  We’re supposed to be good and by the way, he made a couple of statements, the Green New Deal is $100 trillion, not –

JOE BIDEN:   That is not my plan.

DONALD TRUMP:   That’s, uh, well –

JOE BIDEN:   The Green New Deal –

DONALD TRUMP:   – you want to rebuild every building.

JOE BIDEN:   – is not my plan.

DONALD TRUMP:   You want to rebuild every –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, you have, you have –

JOE BIDEN:   If he knew anything about – if he knew anything about –

DONALD TRUMP:   But –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait, wait, wait.

DONALD TRUMP:   – he made a statement about the military.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – gentlemen.

DONALD TRUMP:   He said I said something about the military.

JOE BIDEN:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   He and his friends made it up, and then they went with it.  I never said it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   What he did is he said –

CHRIS WALLACE:   What, uh, we’re done with the segment.

DONALD TRUMP:   – he called the military –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice –

DONALD TRUMP:   – stupid bastards.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice President, I –

JOE BIDEN:   I did not say that.

DONALD TRUMP:   He said it on tape.  He said “stupid bastards.”

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. – Please.

JOE BIDEN:   That is not true.

DONALD TRUMP:   He said it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Stop.

DONALD TRUMP:   I would never say that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I would –

JOE BIDEN:   Play it.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Stop.  Go ahead,

DONALD TRUMP:   You’re on tape.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. Vice President –

JOE BIDEN:   Uh, –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – answer his, his final question.

JOE BIDEN:   The final question is, I can’t remember which of all his rantings and –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I’m having a little trouble myself, but, uh, and, and about the economy and about this question of what it’s going to cost –

JOE BIDEN:   The, the economy, the economy –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I mean, the Green New Deal and the idea of what, what your environmental changes will do.

JOE BIDEN:   The, the Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward.  We’re not going to build plants that in fact are great polluting plants.  We’re going to build –

CHRIS WALLACE:   But do you support the Green New Deal?

JOE BIDEN:   Pardon me?

CHRIS WALLACE:   Do you support –

JOE BIDEN:   No, I don’t support the Green New Deal.

DONALD TRUMP:   Oh, you don’t?  Oh, well that’s a big statement.

JOE BIDEN:   I support the Biden –

DONALD TRUMP:   That means you just lost the radical left. 

JOE BIDEN:   I, I support the Biden plan –

DONALD TRUMP:   No, you don’t.

JOE BIDEN:   – that I put forward.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

JOE BIDEN:   The Biden plan, which is different than what he calls the radical Green New Deal.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, gentlemen, final segment.  Election integrity.  As we meet tonight, millions of Americans are receiving mail-in ballots or going to vote early.  How confident should we be that this will be a fair election, and what are you prepared to do over the next 5 plus weeks, because it’ll not only be to election day, but also counting some ballots, mail-in ballots after election day, what are you prepared to do to reassure the American people that the next President will be the legitimate winner of this election.  In this final segment, Mr. Vice President, you go first.

JOE BIDEN:   I’m prepared to let people vote.  They should go to IWillVote.com, decide how they’re going to vote, when they’re going to vote and what means by which they’re going to vote.  His own Homeland Security Director, and as well as the FBI Directors, says there is no evidence at all that mail-in ballots are a source of, of being manipulated and cheating.  They said that.  The fact is that there are going to be millions of people, because of COVID, that are going to be voting by mail-in ballots, like he does, by the way.  He sits behind the Resolute Desk and sends his ballot to Florida, number one.  Number two, we’re going to make sure that those people who want to vote in person are able to vote, because there are enough poll watchers are there to make sure they can socially distance, the polls are open on time, and the polls stay open until the votes are counted.  And this is all about trying to dissuade people from voting, because he’s trying to conf, to, to scare people into thinking that it’s not going to be legitimate.  Show up and vote.  You will determine the outcome of this election.  Vote, vote, vote.  If you’re able to vote early in your state, vote early.  If you’re able to vote in person, vote in person, vote whatever way is the best way for you, because you will – he cannot stop you from being able to determine the outcome of this election.  And in terms of whether or not when the votes are counted and they’re all counted, that will be accepted.  If I win, that will be accepted.  If I lose, that will be accepted.  But by the way, if in fact he says he’s not sure what he’s going to accept?  Well let me tell you something, it doesn’t matter, because if we get the votes, it’s going to be all over.  He’s going to go.  He can’t stay in power.  It won’t happen.  It won’t happen.  So vote.  Just make sure you understand, you have it in your control to determine what this country is going to look like the next 4 years.  Is it going to change or you get 4 more years of these lies?

CHRIS WALLACE:   Mr. President, 2 minutes.

DONALD TRUMP:   So when I listen to Joe talking about a transition, uh, there’s been no transition from when I won.  I won that election, and if you look at crooked Hillary Clinton, if you look at all the different people, uh, there was no transition, because they came after me trying to do a coup.  They came after me spying on my campaign.  They started from the day I won and even before I won, from the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady.  They were a disaster.  They were a disgrace to our country, and we’ve caught them, we’ve caught them all.  We’ve got it all on tape, we’ve caught them all.  And by the way, you gave the idea for the Logan Act against General Flynn.  You better take a look at that, because we caught you in a sense, and President Obama was sitting in the office.  He knew about it too, so don’t tell me about a free transition.  As far as the ballots are concerned, it’s a disaster.  A solicited ballot, okay, solicited is okay.  You’re soliciting, you’re asking, they send it back, you send it back.  I did that.  If you have an unsolicited – they’re sending millions of ballots all over the country.  There’s fraud.  They found them in creeks.  They found some with the name Trump – just happened to have the name Trump, just the other day in a wastepaper basket.  They’re being sent all over the place.  They sent two in a Democrat area.  They sent out a thousand ballots, everybody got two ballots.  This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen.  The other thing, it’s nice on November 3^rd, you’re watching and you see who won the election, and I think we’re going to do well, because people are really happy with the job we’ve done.  But you know what, we won’t know.  We might not know for months, because these ballots are going to be all over.  Take a look at what happened in Manhattan.  Take a look at what happened in New Jersey.  Take a look at what happened in Virginia and other places.  They’re not losing 2 percent, 1 percent, which by the way is too much.  An election could be won or lost with that.  They’re losing 30 and 40 percent.  It’s a fraud, and it’s a shame, and can you imagine where they say, uh, you have to have your ballot in by November 10^th.  November 10^th.  That means, that’s 7 days after the election, in theory should have been announced.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   We have major states with that –

CHRIS WALLACE:   That’s time, uh, sir –

DONALD TRUMP:   – all run by Democrats.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – 2 minutes is 2 minutes.

DONALD TRUMP:   All run by Democrats.

CHRIS WALLACE:   You’re, you’re, –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s a fraud.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – President Trump, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s a rigged election.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I, I, you’re, you’re going to be able to continue.  You have been charging for months that mail-in balloting is going to be a disaster.  You say it’s rigged, and said it’s going to lead to fraud, but in 2018, in the last mid-term election, 31 million people voted mail-in voting.  That was a quarter, more than a quarter of all the voters that year, cast their ballots by mail.  Now that millions of mail-in ballots have gone out, what are you going to do about it, and are you counting on the Supreme Court, including Justice Barrett to settle any dispute?

DONALD TRUMP:   Yeah, I, I think I’m counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely.  I don’t think we’ll – I hope we don’t need them in terms of the election itself, but for the ballots, I think so, because what’s happening is incredible.  I just heard, I read today where at least 1 percent of the ballots for 2016, were invalidated.  They, they take them, we don’t like them, we don’t like them, they throw them out left and right.

CHRIS WALLACE:   But what are you going to do about it if there are millions of ballots going out right now –

DONALD TRUMP:   What you do is you –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – what do you do?

DONALD TRUMP:   – you go and vote.  You do a solicited ballot –

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, no, I’m not talking –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and that’s okay, or –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I know your complaint.

DONALD TRUMP:   – you go and vote.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I’m asking you about the fact that millions of people –

DONALD TRUMP:   You go and vote.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – have received –

DONALD TRUMP:   You go and vote.

CHRIS WALLACE:   No, but what I’m saying is –

DONALD TRUMP:   Like they –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – what are you going to do about the fact –

DONALD TRUMP:   – used to in the old –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – that millions of people –

DONALD TRUMP:   You either do, Chris, a solicited ballot where you’re sending it in, they’re sending it back and you’re sending – they have mailmen with lots of it – did you see what’s going on?  Take a look at West Virginia, mailmen selling the ballots.  They’re being sold, they’re being dumped in rivers.  This is a horrible thing for our country.

JOE BIDEN:   There is no, –

DONALD TRUMP:   This is not –

JOE BIDEN:   – there is no evidence of that –

DONALD TRUMP:   – this is not going to end well.

JOE BIDEN:   There is no evidence of that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   This is not going to end well.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President Biden.

JOE BIDEN:   There are five states that had mail-in ballots –

CHRIS WALLACE:   In fact, go ahead, sir.

JOE BIDEN:   – for the last decade or more, or five, including two Republican states and you don’t have to solicit the ballot, it’s sent to you, it’s sent to your home.  What we’re saying is, they’re saying is that there has to be a postmark by the time, by election day.  If it doesn’t get in until the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, it still should be counted.  He’s just afraid of counting the votes because he knows the outcome –

DONALD TRUMP:   You’re wrong, you’re wrong.

JOE BIDEN:   I am not wrong.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Well, that, no, I want to, I want to continue –

DONALD TRUMP:   I love counting the votes.  I love counting the votes.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – with you on this, uh, Vice President Biden, because –

DONALD TRUMP:   Chris, he’s so wrong when he makes a statement like that.

CHRIS WALLACE:   In fact, no, excuse me, uh, Vice President Biden, the biggest problem in fact over the years with mail-in voting has not been fraud historically.  It has been that sizeable numbers, sometimes hundreds of thousands of ballots are thrown out, because they, uh, have not been properly filled out or there is some other irregularity, or they missed –

DONALD TRUMP:   That would be fraud.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – the deadline.  So the question I have is are you concerned that the Supreme Court, with the Justice Barrett, will settle any dispute?

JOE BIDEN:   I’m concerned that any court would settle this, because here’s the deal, when you, when you file, when you get a ballot and you fill it out, you’re supposed to have an affidavit.  If you didn’t know, you have, uh, someone say that this is me.  You should be able to, if in fact you can verify that you, when, before the ballot is thrown out, that’s sufficient to be able to count the ballot, because someone made a mistake in not, uh, dotting the correct I.  Who they voted for, testify, say who they voted for, uh, say it’s you, that is totally legitimate.

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right, –

DONALD TRUMP:   Excuse me –

CHRIS WALLACE:   A final – no, no, no.

DONALD TRUMP:   – Chris, when you have 80 million –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I have a final, I –

DONALD TRUMP:   – ballots –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Gentlemen, I have a final question.

DONALD TRUMP:   – sending and swamping the system –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – I, I, you’re, you, you’ve –

DONALD TRUMP:   You know it can’t be done.  You know it can’t and already –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

DONALD TRUMP:   – there’s been fraud –

CHRIS WALLACE:   So now –

DONALD TRUMP:   – deception –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait a minute, gentlemen.  A final question –

JOE BIDEN:   The mail service delivers 185 million pieces of mail a day.

DONALD TRUMP:   You have 80 million ballots.

CHRIS WALLACE:   In eight states – we can keep talking.

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s, it’s, it’s a disgrace.

CHRIS WALLACE:   In eight states, election workers are prohibited currently by law, eight states, from even beginning to process ballots, even take them out of the envelopes and –

JOE BIDEN:   Yes.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – flatten them until election day.  That means that it’s likely, because there’s going to be a huge increase in mail-in balloting that we are not going to know on election night who the winner is, that it could be days, it could be weeks –

DONALD TRUMP:   It could be months.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – until we find out who the, the, the new President is.  So I, first for you, sir, finally for the, for the Vice President and I hope neither of you will interrupt the other, will you urge your supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest, and will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified?  President Trump, you go first.

DONALD TRUMP:   I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen.  I am urging them to do it.  As you know, today there was a big problem.  In Philadelphia, they went in to watch.  They were, uh, called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing.  They were thrown out.  They weren’t allowed to watch.  You know why?  Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things, and I am urging –

CHRIS WALLACE:   I –

DONALD TRUMP:   – I am urging my people – I hope it’s going to be a fair election.  If it’s a fair election –

CHRIS WALLACE:   You’re urging them what?

DONALD TRUMP:   – I am 100 percent on board, but if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that, and I’ll tell you what –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Wait, what does that mean –

DONALD TRUMP:   – from a common sense –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – can’t go along?  Does that mean you’re going to –

DONALD TRUMP:   I’ll tell you what it means.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – tell your people to take to the streets?

DONALD TRUMP:   It means you have a fraudulent election.

CHRIS WALLACE:   And what are you going to do –

DONALD TRUMP:   You’re sending out 80 million ballots –

CHRIS WALLACE:   – and what will you do about that?

DONALD TRUMP:   They’re not, they’re not equipped to – these people aren’t equipped to handle it, number one.  Number two, –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Okay.

DONALD TRUMP:   – they cheat, they cheat.  Hey, they found ballots in a wastepaper basket 3 days ago –

CHRIS WALLACE:   But –

DONALD TRUMP:   – and they all had the name –

CHRIS WALLACE:   All right.

DONALD TRUMP:   Military ballots, they were military.  They all had the name Trump on them.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, Vice President Biden –

DONALD TRUMP:   You think that’s good?

CHRIS WALLACE:   – uh, Vice President Biden, final question for you.  Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?

JOE BIDEN:   Yes, and here’s the deal, we’ll count the ballots.  As you pointed out, some of these ballots in some states can’t even be opened until election day, and if there’s thousands of ballots, it’s going to take time to do it.  And by the way, our military, they’ve been voting by ballots for, since the end of the civil war in effect.  And that’s, and that’s what’s going to happen.  Why was it not, why is it for them somehow not fraudulent?  It’s the same process.  It’s honest.  No one has established at all that there is, uh, fraud related to mail-in ballots that, uh, somehow, it’s a fraudulent process.

DONALD TRUMP:   It’s already been established.

JOE BIDEN:   It, it’s a, –

DONALD TRUMP:   Take a look at Carolyn Maloney’s race.

CHRIS WALLACE:   I know, I, I, I asked you.  You had an opportunity to respond.

DONALD TRUMP:   Look at Carolyn Maloney –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Go ahead.

DONALD TRUMP:   – they have no idea what happened.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Vice President Biden, go ahead.

JOE BIDEN:   He has no idea what he’s talking about.  Here’s the deal, the fact is I will accept it and he will too.  You know why?  Because once the winner is declared after all the, all the ballots are counted, all the votes are counted, that’ll be the end of it.  That’ll be the end of it.  And if it’s me, in fact, fine.  If it’s, if it’s not me, I’ll support the outcome, and I’ll be a President not just for the, uh, Democrats, I’ll be a President for Democrats and Republicans.  And this guy –

DONALD TRUMP:   I want to see an honest ballot –

JOE BIDEN:   – if in fact –

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, gentlemen, we’ll say that’s the end of it.

DONALD TRUMP:   We, Chris, I want to –

CHRIS WALLACE:   This is the end of this debate.

DONALD TRUMP:   – see an honest ballot count.

CHRIS WALLACE:   We’re going to leave it there.

DONALD TRUMP:   I think he does too.

CHRIS WALLACE:   Uh, to be continued as, in more debates as we go on.  Uh, President Trump, Vice President Biden, it’s been an interesting hour and a half.  I want to thank you both for participating in the first of three debates that you have agreed to engage in.  We want to thank Case Western Reserve University –

JOE BIDEN:   Yes.

CHRIS WALLACE:   – and the Cleveland Clinic for hosting this event.  The next debate sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates will be 1 week from tomorrow, October 7^th at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  The two Vice Presidential nominees, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will debate at 9:00 p.m. Eastern that night.  We hope you watch.  Until then, thank you and goodnight.

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