Here is The place Biden and Trump Stand on the Points

WASHINGTON — Once they meet for his or her second and last debate on Thursday evening, President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. are anticipated to face questions over problems with deep consequence just like the coronavirus, local weather change and nationwide safety.

Their first debate didn’t lend itself to a very considerate dialogue of coverage, given Mr. Trump’s fixed interruptions. This time, the candidates’ microphones might be muted for parts of the controversy.

Right here’s a information to the place Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden stand on the six subjects chosen for Thursday’s debate by the moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC Information.

Preventing Covid-19

Mr. Trump’s coronavirus prognosis in early October despatched him to the hospital for 3 days however did nothing to alter his rhetoric about his dealing with of the pandemic.

The president has repeatedly claimed that his administration’s response has been large, and at rallies during the last a number of days, he has insisted that the nation is “rounding the nook” even amid one other surge of instances in lots of locations.

Because the starting of the pandemic, Mr. Trump has downplayed the menace from the virus and has ignored recommendation from well being officers, refusing to put on a masks and holding gatherings with giant crowds. His administration’s failures to quickly develop testing are additionally effectively documented.

Seizing on Mr. Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, Mr. Biden has been wanting to make a case for why the nation could be higher off if he have been in cost. That has been a central message of his marketing campaign for a lot of months, and he has been fast to level to his plans for addressing the coronavirus disaster, which embrace improved testing, expanded manufacturing of private protecting gear, protected vaccine growth and the protected reopening of faculties. He has emphasised the significance of following science, and he has modeled accountable habits on the marketing campaign path, sporting a masks and refraining from holding crowded rallies.

Mr. Biden has mentioned that he hopes Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s high infectious illness knowledgeable, can even serve in his administration. Mr. Trump on Monday attacked Dr. Fauci as “a catastrophe.”

The controversy will give Mr. Biden yet one more high-profile alternative to drive up these contrasts, and to argue that Mr. Trump’s mismanagement has inflicted nice ache on numerous American households whereas additionally inflicting useless financial break.

American households

Mr. Trump’s largest declare to serving to American households is the tax lower he helped push via Congress in 2017. The president brags about doubling the kid tax credit score, which was a part of that measure, although many low-income households don’t obtain the total advantage of the change as a result of they make too little earnings to benefit from it.

One in all Mr. Trump’s most constant marketing campaign messages is that his commerce insurance policies have helped American households by stopping corporations from offshoring American jobs and elevating tariffs on items from different nations that compete with American-made merchandise. However his try to carry again jobs seems to have had restricted success, and his commerce conflict with China has harm the USA greater than it has helped.

The president additionally talks usually about defending American households from violence, insisting that his anti-immigration insurance policies — which blocked asylum seekers and refugees — have led to deportations of gang members and blocked harmful criminals from coming into the nation. In latest weeks, he has seized on the generally violent protests in opposition to police brutality in American cities, saying that his help of the police is defending “the suburbs” and the lifestyle there for households.

Whereas it stays to be seen what subjects come up on this section, Mr. Biden has various coverage plans he can draw on which might be supposed to assist households, together with his suite of “Construct Again Higher” financial plans.

One plank in that set of plans focuses on caregiving, with proposals addressing look after babies, older adults and folks with disabilities. He may level to proposals supposed to assist People of various ages. For younger individuals, for instance, he proposes to make public schools tuition-free for a lot of college students. For older individuals, he has a plan to bolster Social Safety, and he has accused Mr. Trump of threatening the way forward for that program.

As well as, Mr. Biden has vowed to roll again Mr. Trump’s restrictive immigration insurance policies. On Day 1, he says he’ll ship laws to Congress that would supply a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Race in America

Mr. Trump repeatedly claims to have performed extra for African-People than any president apart from Abraham Lincoln, an assertion that the majority consultants say is absurd on its face. To again it up, the president factors to his help for long-term funding for traditionally Black schools and universities, and to his signing of the bipartisan First Step Act, which made modest reforms in federal sentencing legal guidelines.

However from the earliest days of his presidency, Mr. Trump has stoked racial divisions within the nation. After clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, he mentioned that there have been “very wonderful individuals on either side.” He used vulgar language to deride African nations and mentioned that Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.” And he engaged in a prolonged tradition conflict with African-American soccer gamers over their kneeling through the nationwide anthem.

Lately, his response to protests about police violence has been to assault the protesters as anarchists and looters and to disclaim that systemic racism exists in police departments. And within the first debate, he refused to denounce the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, telling them to “stand again and stand by.”

Because the demise of George Floyd in police custody in Could, Mr. Biden has emphasised the necessity to struggle racial injustice, talking concerning the problem in a strikingly totally different method than Mr. Trump does.

This summer time, Mr. Biden rolled out a plan to handle financial racial disparities, similar to by rising entry to capital for minority-owned companies. He has additionally referred to as for modifications in policing, together with a ban on chokeholds.

Because the very starting of his marketing campaign, Mr. Biden has been centered on denying a second time period to a president whom he faults for encouraging hatred and division within the nation. Mr. Biden factors to Mr. Trump’s feedback after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as having motivated him to run for president.

Local weather change

When Mr. Trump is requested about local weather change, he invariably responds that he has ensured the USA has the “cleanest air” and “cleanest water.” That isn’t true — air air pollution is rising beneath the Trump administration — however it’s also not the identical as local weather change, brought on by human exercise like burning fossil fuels.

Mr. Trump has referred to as local weather change a hoax and referred to as those that care concerning the problem “prophets of doom.” He additionally has sometimes conceded that people play some function within the planet’s warming. (Scientists have established that man-made emissions account for the entire local weather change during the last 50 years, the interval when the overwhelming majority of modifications have occurred.)

His insurance policies, nevertheless, are constantly against addressing international warming. Mr. Trump has moved to withdraw from the Paris settlement on local weather change and has rolled again nearly each regulation geared toward decreasing emissions from automobiles, energy vegetation and different sources. He has promoted the event of fossil gasoline vitality, and made it simpler for getting older coal vegetation to remain on-line.

A lot of his strikes have been met with reward by officers within the oil, fuel and coal sectors who felt rules beneath the Obama administration have been onerous.

Mr. Biden has attacked Mr. Trump as a “local weather arsonist,” criticized the president’s dismissiveness of science and championed a $2 trillion plan to develop clear vitality whereas driving down emissions. He has referred to as local weather change one among 4 “historic crises” dealing with the USA, alongside the pandemic, the following financial disaster and racial injustice.

However he additionally has been on the defensive about a few of his positions on local weather change, notably across the Inexperienced New Deal, a local weather plan embraced by progressive teams and criticized by Republicans. In his first debate with Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden mentioned he didn’t help the Inexperienced New Deal, however his web site calls it a “essential framework” for motion.

One other space the place Mr. Biden is prone to come beneath assault from Mr. Trump is fracking, the method of extracting oil and fuel from shale rock. Mr. Biden has pledged a ban on new oil and fuel allowing on public lands and waters however has assured union leaders that he’ll shield current fracking jobs whereas pursuing a clear vitality transition. Mr. Trump has accused him, falsely, of desirous to ban fracking altogether.

Nationwide safety

If Mr. Trump sticks to his previous script, he’ll tout his efforts to wind down wars and pursue extremists within the Center East.

Beneath his watch, the American army not solely killed the chief of the Islamic State and compelled the phobia group to give up its territory in Iraq and Syria, but in addition took out the commander of an elite Iranian commando unit who officers believed posed a menace to the American Embassy in Baghdad.

However Mr. Trump’s personal army advisers, in addition to overseas commanders, have been reluctant to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Beneath the guise of his “America First” overseas coverage, Mr. Trump has pushed a collection of strain campaigns in opposition to different nations, together with NATO allies whom he has criticized for not contributing sufficient for their very own protection, and ruptured multilateral accords. He has additionally taken an uncommon strategy towards diplomacy with hostile nations. His efforts have been met with blended success.

Ramping up financial sanctions in opposition to Iran, which defied the phrases of the nuclear accord after Mr. Trump withdrew the USA from the settlement, and pursuing diplomacy with North Korea have led to new weapons manufacturing in each nations. He was the primary sitting American president to step into North Korea — though just for a minute or so, on the Demilitarized Zone — when he and that nation’s chief, Kim Jong-un, agreed to proceed negotiations in 2019. (These talks have since fallen aside.)

An almost two-year demand that Venezuela’s president go away energy has gone ignored in Caracas. A pledge to ship the “deal of the century” peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians unraveled. But his efforts to normalize relations and ease many years of hostility between Israel and Arab states are to not be dismissed.

As a senator, Mr. Biden served as chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee. His overseas coverage platform is especially to rebuild alliances that Mr. Trump has undermined — together with NATO, the World Well being Group and varied United Nations missions. He’s anticipated to recommit the USA to the Paris local weather accord and the Iran nuclear deal.

Coping with an emboldened China might be difficult for each Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.

Mr. Trump has hammered China on points together with the coronavirus and human rights abuses however he’s additionally nonetheless making an attempt to protect his commerce cope with Beijing, and aides have suggested him to mood a few of his criticism to put it aside.

Mr. Biden has signaled extra willingness to work with China on points like international well being and the setting, however can also be important of Beijing’s authoritarian techniques in opposition to spiritual minorities and protesters in Hong Kong. He has promoted better financial competitors with China in markets which have largely gone ignored by Mr. Trump, like in Africa.

Management

Mr. Trump has embraced the concept the election is a referendum on his management, boasting that his stewardship of the nation throughout his first time period has led to a stronger army, a extra resilient financial system, a much less porous border and fewer involvement in overseas wars. He usually brags that beneath his management, the USA doesn’t get pushed round by different nations.

However Mr. Trump has eschewed most of the conventional management roles that the majority presidents assume. He has largely did not carry the nation collectively in occasions of tragedy because the “consoler in chief,” usually stoking division as an alternative of therapeutic. And he has rejected the concept the president ought to set an instance for the general public — refusing to put on masks through the pandemic and shrugging off recommendations that his rhetoric units the unsuitable tone from the Oval Workplace.

On the worldwide stage, Mr. Trump has additionally deserted the custom of American management. He has alienated most of the nation’s conventional allies, and he has embraced dictators and authoritarian figures around the globe at the same time as he proclaims that America ought to go it alone.

Mr. Biden presents himself as a really totally different type of chief: a unifying determine who won’t shirk accountability within the face of a nationwide disaster and who might be trustworthy with the American individuals.

As examples of his personal management, Mr. Biden factors to his skill as a senator to hunt consensus and work throughout the aisle. He additionally boasts of his relationships with world leaders.

His marketing campaign has amounted to an prolonged condemnation of Mr. Trump’s management — in phrases and deeds, at house and on the world stage.

Mr. Biden has assailed Mr. Trump over his governing competence, or lack thereof, notably through the pandemic. And he has criticized Mr. Trump for sowing division, fairly than bringing individuals collectively. “The phrases of a president matter,” Mr. Biden likes to say.

Lisa Friedman and Lara Jakes contributed reporting.