Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday evening in the final debate of the U.S. presidential election race, with the candidates lowering the volume in the early stages of a relatively fluent clash before reverting to bickering in the final half hour.

Interactive page: X Factors in the U.S. Election

The candidates exchanged barbs over personal income issues, COVID-19 and race, but largely avoided a repeat of the bad-tempered, interruption-filled head-to-head in Ohio three weeks ago, with moderator Kristen Welker receiving praise from pundits for her handling of the 90-minute debate. 

With the president trailing his Democratic challenger by 8.7 points nationally and in most battlegrounds, according to a CGTN analysis of public polls, the men sought to make their case with just 12 days to go until election day.

Both Trump and Biden scored points and neither made major slip-ups in a debate that is unlikely to significantly change the trajectory of the race for the White House, with over 48 million Americans having already cast ballots and polls suggesting there are few undecided voters.

Money, personal attacks

Trump and Biden clashed over sources of personal income and business dealings in the most contentious sections of the debate, with the president repeatedly pivoting back to unsubstantiated allegations about the former vice president's family.

The Republican brought up a disputed New York Post story about his opponent's son Hunter Biden and also accused the Democrat of taking $3.5 million from Russia, adding "don't give me this stuff about how you're this innocent baby, Joe, they're calling you a corrupt politician."

Biden said the allegations were untrue and argued Trump was reverting to conspiracy theories because he didn't want to address substantive issues. "I have not taken money from any foreign source in my life," he added.

Looking down the camera, Biden said: "There's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the substantive issues." The president criticized him for a "typical political answer" as part of repeated attempts to present himself as an outsider. 

Trump again insisted he couldn't release his tax returns because they were under audit and claimed he only paid $750 in income tax in 2016 because he "pre-paid millions and millions of dollars in taxes."

Biden said he'd released 22 years of his own records in full and urged Trump: "show us, just show us, stop playing around."

Trump says vaccine 'ready'

Trump said the U.S. had "a vaccine that's ready" for COVID-19 and that it's going to be delivered within weeks via the military, but later said the earlier claim is "not a guarantee." 

The president also insisted of the virus, "it will go away and we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner, it's going away," despite cases rising in most states, more than 225,000 Americans dead from the disease and millions of jobs lost due to the pandemic.

Trump later accused Biden of being slow in his response to the pandemic and cited his own decision to impose a partial ban on travel from China as an example of his effective handling of the crisis.

Biden responded: "You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who's responsible for not taking control –  in fact… saying 'I take no responsibility' initially – anyone who's responsible for that many deaths, should not remain as president of the United States of America." 

The former vice president said he had a plan, would listen to the advice of scientists and urged people to wear masks. 

"I don't look at this in the way he does, blue states and red states," Biden added. "They're all the United States. And look at all the states that are having a spike in the coronavirus, they're the red states."

Other issues

The emotive issue of family separations drew sharp exchanges, amid a report that the parents of 545 children separated from their families under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy at the U.S.-Mexico border cannot be located.

Biden said kids were being ripped from their parents' arms, while Trump insisted the children were being well looked after and the administration is "trying very hard" to locate their parents. 

To Trump's claim that he is "the least racist person in this room," Biden said the president was "one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history" and "this guy has a dog whistle as long as a foghorn."

The debate touched on national security and foreign policy, with Biden criticizing Trump for having "legitimized" the Democratic People's Republic of Korea by meeting with leader Kim Jong Un. 

The president claimed former President Barack Obama also wanted a meeting, but that Kim did not want to meet him because he didn't like him.

On healthcare, Trump again said that "Obamacare is no good" and that he wanted to end it, adding that he supported the case heading to the Supreme Court that could lead to the law being dismantled.

Biden said he would build on Obamacare with a public option, adding that the difference between him and the president was that he believed "healthcare is not a privilege, it's a right."

The candidates also clashed on the electorally important issue of fracking, a key factor in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, with Biden insisting he would not ban the practice in full and reiterating that he wanted to transition away from the use of fossil fuels. 

With 12 days to go until election day, the debate was the final mass viewership event of the race but is unlikely to move the dial in the polls as the clock ticks towards November 3.  

Scan the QR code in the video above to check out CGTN's U.S. election interactive special for exclusive data as well as the latest news, explainers, cartoons and analysis.