Final 2020 presidential debate

President Trump downplayed his struggles with campaign fundraising on Thursday night, telling the debate audience that his campaign has “plenty of money” despite its shrinking bank account.

“I could blow away your records like you wouldn’t believe,” Trump said of Biden’s strong fundraising. “We don’t need money. We have plenty of money.”

Trump pointed to the fact that he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 with a “tiny fraction” of the money she raised.

Biden and the Democratic Party outraised Trump and the Republicans by $135 million in September — $383 million to $247.8 million.

Trump’s comments came during an attempt to attack Biden for taking money from Wall Street. Biden noted that his campaign’s average contribution is $43.

Watch the exchange:

After the first section at tonight's debate, which was on the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump manages an early lead on speaking times ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden by nearly three minutes.

US authorities are investigating whether recently published emails that purport to detail the business dealings of Joe Biden's son in Ukraine and China are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting the former vice president's campaign, a US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter said.

The conservative-leaning New York Post claimed in a series of articles that it obtained "smoking-gun" emails about Hunter Biden and his dealings in Ukraine. CNN has not determined the authenticity of the emails.

President Donald Trump and his allies have used this topic to smear the Bidens over the past year and seized on the recent articles to attack Biden in the final weeks of the presidential election. The specific new allegations touch on the same topics as the Kremlin's ongoing disinformation campaign against the Bidens, which the US intelligence community said this summer was intended to weaken Biden's candidacy against Trump.

The FBI is leading the investigation, the official and congressional source said. NBC was first to report the inquiry.

The probe is part of a larger investigation into Russian disinformation that dates back to before the impeachment inquiry last fall. The alleged disinformation campaign is aimed at tying the former vice president to his son's dealings with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

 Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, during an appearance on Fox Business this week, said there was "no intelligence to support" claims that Russian disinformation were behind the articles. The FBI said in a letter Tuesday night that it had "nothing to add" to his comments, but suggested that the review was continuing.

"If actionable intelligence is developed, the FBI in consultation with the Intelligence Community will evaluate the need to provide defensive briefings to you and the Committee pursuant to the established notification framework," wrote Jill C. Tyson, FBI assistant director for congressional affairs.

The New York Post says it obtained the emails through two Trump confidants: His personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Giuliani has openly coordinated with a known Russian agent to promote disinformation about the Bidens. The Washington Post reported last week the White House, and Trump personally, were warned in 2019 that Giuliani "was being used to feed Russian misinformation" to the President. Separately, Bannon was recently charged by the Justice Department with orchestrating a million-dollar fraud scheme and accused of deceiving thousands of donors to his nonprofit.

Senate Republicans investigated the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine -- a probe that received bipartisan criticism as being a politically motivated endeavor. The Republican in charge even said he hoped the findings would convince people not to vote for Biden, but the investigation ended in September without uncovering any evidence that Biden abused his powers or changed US policy because of his son's business ties.

President Trump claimed during the debate that coronavirus virus is going away. "We're rounding the corner. It's going away,” Trump said. 

Facts First: This is false. The US coronavirus situation – as measured by newly confirmed cases, hospitalizations and the test positivity rate -–  is getting worse, not better. There is no basis for his vague claim that we are "rounding the corner."

Trump has baselessly claimed for eight months that the virus would disappear or was currently disappearing. 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed President Donald Trump's response to the state of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

"[Trump] says, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it," he said.

This came after President Trump claimed he does not say the pandemic will be over soon but that Americans "are learning to live with it. We have no choice."

Biden added: "You tell the people it's dangerous now? What should they do about the danger? And you say I take no responsibility."

About the pandemic: More than 222,000 people have died from coronavirus in the US. The country leads the world in total confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 8.4 million infections since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University data. India, Brazil and Russia follow behind.

Watch the moment:

In perhaps a sign of things to come, President’s Trump’s first answer — which was meant to state how he would lead during the next stage of the coronavirus — relied instead on looking backward and wishful thinking about a vaccine.

“It will go away and as I say, we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” he said.

As he does nearly every time he is pressed on his pandemic response, Trump cited his decision to close travel to China, though thousands of people were exempt and were still able to enter the country. He insisted the United States was suffering alongside Europe, which is also experiencing new spikes. But unlike Trump, leaders there — including French President Emmanuel Macron — have imposed new lockdowns.

And he placed nearly all of his optimism on a vaccine, which he claimed would arrive “within weeks.” There is no indication that is true; vaccine trials are still underway and the Food and Drug Administration has imposed rules requiring months of data for emergency use of a new vaccine. Later, Trump acknowledged his promise of a vaccine “within weeks” was not a “guarantee.” But he said he was hopeful for one by the end of the year.

His answers were a sign that Trump doesn’t plan to change his approach to coronavirus, even as cases surge. He said as much earlier this week; in a town hall event, Trump responded when asked what he would do differently: “Not much.”

This is how the question played out:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden opened the final general election debate on Thursday by arguing President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States should guarantee he is voted out of office in November.

Biden contrasted Trump’s handling of the virus to what he says his own would be: A focus on pushing people to wear masks and more rapid testing for the virus.

“I would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the wherewithal, the financial resources to be able to do that,” Biden said.

The former vice president also warned that the worst of the virus could be yet to come, saying the country is about to “go into a dark winter” and Trump “has no clear plan and there’s no prospect that there’s going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American people before the middle of next year.”

Coronavirus has dominated the general election, with voters telling pollsters and reporters that it is the most important issue on their minds as they consider who to vote for in November.

Watch the moment:

President Trump has in recent months lambasted China over the coronavirus pandemic, but he praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s handling of the deadly disease for months at the beginning of the outbreak.

As cases of Covid-19 first began to appear in the United States, Trump spoke highly of Xi’s handling of the outbreak in China and repeatedly said the US was in close coordination with Beijing on the matter.

“I think they've handled it professionally and I think they're extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it's going to be resolved,” he said on Feb. 13.

Hundreds of US deaths later, Trump’s attitude toward Beijing began to change.

Yet even as cases skyrocketed in the US and Trump’s ire with China grew, he directed his actions not at Beijing but at the World Health Organization.

Trump said he was halting funding to the organization in mid-April and announced his intention to withdraw from the WHO in May after he said it "failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms."

Trump had denounced the US' contribution to the WHO — $400-500 million — in comparison to China's and consistently accused the organization of aiding China in allegedly covering up the origins of the virus and allowing its spread. In July, he officially initiated the US withdrawal from the WHO, which will be complete next July. 

Trump said last week that he could not say when he had last spoken to his Chinese counterpart.

“I have not spoken to him in a while because I don’t want to speak to him,” he said.

The first question of tonight's debate is about the coronavirus pandemic, which has become a pivotal issue of the 2020 election.

Here are key facts you need to know:

Here's where new cases are rising across the US in comparison to the previous week: