What They Said: Key Topics from Trump-Biden Debate

Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden met Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee, in their final debate before the Nov. 3 presidential election.

NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker was the moderator.

Here are some quotes on key topics from each candidate:

COVID-19 pandemic

“We’re fighting it and we’re fighting it hard. … We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” Donald Trump

“If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. … Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Joe Biden

“This is the same fellow who told you this is going to end by Easter last time. This is the same fellow who told you that, don’t worry, we’re going to end this by the summer. We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan,” Joe Biden

“I don’t know if we’re going to have a dark winter, and at all. We’re opening up our country. We’ve learned and studied and understand the disease,” Donald Trump

North Korea

“He’s legitimized North Korea. He’s talked about his good buddy (leader Kim Jong Un), who’s a thug, a thug. And he talks about how we’re better off when North Korea is much more capable of firing a missile that is able to reach U.S. territory,” Joe Biden

“You know what? North Korea — we’re not in a war. We have a good relationship,” Donald Trump

Health care

“No matter how well you run (the Affordable Care Act), it’s no good. What we’d like to do is terminate it. We have the individual mandate done. I don’t know that it’s going to work. If we don’t win (in court) … we’ll have Obamacare but it will be better run,” Donald Trump

“People deserve to have affordable health care, period. Period. Period. Period,” Joe Biden

Immigration

“Those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It makes us a laughingstock and it violates every notion of who we are,” Joe Biden on hundreds of children separated from their parents at the border.

“Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels … We let people in but they have to come in legally,” Donald Trump

Minimum wage

“How are you helping your small businesses when you’re forcing wages? What’s going to happen, and what’s been proven to happen, is when you do that, these small businesses fire many of their employees,” Donald Trump

“There is no evidence that when you raise the minimum wage, businesses go out of business,” Joe Biden

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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