United States President Donald Trump and Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden went face-to-face as part of their first presidential debate on Wednesday, the most pivotal moment so far in an election that is being held during a historic pandemic, racial unrest and an economy in shambles.
They were hoping to sway undecided voters in the final weeks leading up to the November 3 election. Healthcare, coronavirus and the future of the Supreme Court are some of the many topics that came up during the debate.
While discussing the deaths in the US due to COVID-19, President Trump told Biden, “If you were here, it wouldn't be 200,000 people, it would be 2 million people. You didn't want me to ban China, which was heavily infected.... If we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open.”
He also went onto blame China and then alleged that China, Russia and India don’t reveal the exact numbers about the deaths due to COVID-19. Trump said, “By the way, when you talk about numbers, you don’t know how many people died in China, you don’t know how many died in Russia, you don’t know how many died in India, they don’t exactly give you a straight count, just so you understand.”
Donald Trump levels serious allegations on India
— Vinay Kumar Dokania (@VinayDokania) September 30, 2020
Claims Indian Modi govt has been hiding real #COVID19 Death Numbers from the world
Will @narendramodi apologize and reveal the correct data? pic.twitter.com/raYU0rPlBa
This accusation about Biden not wanting Trump to ban China is off the mark. Biden never came out against Trump's decision to restrict travel from China. Biden was slow in taking a position on the matter but when he did, he supported the restrictions.
While Trump repeatedly, and falsely, claimed to have banned travel from China, the government had only restricted it. The US restrictions that took effect on February 2 continued to allow travel to the US from China's Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months.
The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the US in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.
Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. US officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure, according to media reports.
Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the US did.
The pandemic's effects were in plain sight during the debate as well, with the candidates' lecterns spaced far apart, all of the guests in the small crowd tested and the traditional opening handshake scrapped. The men did not shake hands and while neither candidate wore a mask to take the stage, their families did sport face coverings.
(With PTI Inputs)