Trump and Biden were in different cities for the dueling town halls Thursday that replaced their debate. But they may as well have been in different universes.

Replacing the presidential debate with competing conversations with voters was a fitting symbol of a politically divided and socially distanced America. Instead of speaking to, or even shouting at, each other, Trump and Biden spoke past one another on different networks, allowing Americans to choose a favored candidate to describe reality as they want to see it.

The town halls hosted by NBC in Miami for Trump and ABC in Philadelphia for Biden are unlikely to attract nearly the audience a debate would, history suggests, and even many Republicans were baffled by Trump’s decision to withdraw from the second presidential debate when he’s down in the polls and needs every opportunity possible to try disrupt the race’s status quo.

Going into the town hall, Biden led Trump by 9.2 points in the NBC News national polling average. Most swing-state polls in recent months show the Democrat to be the favorite.

It was not clear the town halls would change the trajectory.

Here are five takeaways from the two events.

NBC News fact-checked both Trump and Biden town hall events.

Click here to read all of our takeaways.

Biden has been evasive in recent weeks when it comes to whether he supports packing the Supreme Court with more justices, and ABC town hall moderator George Stephanopoulos tried on multiple occasions Thursday to get the Democratic nominee to take a position.

But Biden did not take the bait and his position on the critical issue remains somewhat murky.

Responding to Stephanopoulos' first attempt to pin him down, Biden said, "I have not been a fan of court packing because then it just...whatever happens, whoever wins it just keeps moving in a way that is inconsistent with what is gonna be manageable."

Expanding the court, which could be accomplished legislatively, is supported by many progressives as a way to dilute the power of conservative justices who are now in the majority. 

When Stephanopoulos followed up by asking whether that means Biden was "still not a fan" of court packing — increasing the size of the court to more than the current nine justices — Biden replied, "Well, I’m not a fan. I didn't say — it depends on how this turns out. Not on how he wins, but how it's handled," an apparent reference to the Senate confirmation vote on nominee Amy Coney Barrett. 

Later, Stephanopoulos tried again by asking Biden whether the Republican-controlled Senate voting on Barrett before Election Day would result in him being "open to expanding the court."

"I'm open to considering what happens from that point on," Biden replied.

Those responses do little clear up questions about Biden's position on the issue.

Last Thursday, Biden said he was withholding his position on the issue until after Nov. 3, telling reporters that, "you'll know my opinion on court-packing the minute the election is over.” Then, on Monday, he said he's "not a fan of court packing." Over the weekend, when asked during an interview with a Las Vegas television station whether voters deserved to know if he would pack the Supreme Court, Biden replied,  "No, they don't."

Biden said in July that he opposed any efforts to expand the size of the Supreme Court, but has backed away from having a clear position on the matter in the weeks since the mid-September death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

During the first presidential debate on Sept. 29, Biden refused to answer a question about court packing, telling moderator Chris Wallace, "Whatever position I take in that, that'll become the issue."

He also told a Wisconsin television station last month that "it's a legitimate question" but that he was "not going to answer" it.  

Biden's position on the issue has come under increased scrutiny since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Senate Republicans have vowed to speed through the confirmation hearings of Barrett — marking a reversal of the precedent they set in 2016, when they refused to even hold hearings for President Barack Obama's court nominee because it was an election year.

Pressed Thursday about his past remarks on white supremacy, Trump claimed he “denounced white supremacy” during the first debate.

Not quite. Asked if he was willing to do it, Trump said, “Sure, I’m prepared to do it,” but then immediately insisted that violence comes from those on the left and not the right.

During the NBC News town hall Thursday, Trump put the blame for the failure of a new coronavirus stimulus package squarely on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"The problem we have is Nancy Pelosi — she couldn’t care less about the worker, she couldn’t care less about our people. We should have a stimulus, I want a stimulus, the Republicans will approve a stimulus,” he said.

Trump added, “She doesn’t want to give the money. We should have stimulus, this is not our people’s fault, this is China’s fault. And she’s penalizing our people. I’m ready to sign a big, beautiful stimulus."

In fact, Trump’s own positions have zigzagged abruptly and are out of sync with his own top administration officials, as well as Senate Republicans, who are uninterested in giving him the big deal he says he wants. Pelosi has demonstrated willingness to spend considerably more money than his party has said it can stomach. Pelosi’s Democratic-led House passed a $3.4 trillion HEROES Act in May, which Senate Republicans rejected. Extended negotiations — stopping and starting — ensued during the summer during which Trump administration officials sought to cut the price tag to about $1 trillion, which Democrats rejected.

The two sides were somewhat closer to a dollar figure when, on Oct. 6, Trump abruptly ordered an end to negotiations and told Republicans to focus on the Supreme Court vacancy. Days later, after the stock market reacted negatively, he shifted again and pleaded for a big stimulus deal. But Senate Republicans have made clear they won’t support that, and Pelosi has called their offers insufficient.

Trump told Guthrie on Thursday that he will commit to a peaceful transition of power if he isn't re-elected. 

“The answer is, yes I will, but I want it to be an honest election,” Trump said, one of his most succinct comments to date on the matter.

Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in recent months. Asked at a news conference last month whether he would accept a Biden win, Trump said that "we’re going to have to see what happens." He also told Fox News' Chris Wallace in June that he would "have to see" about a peaceful transfer. Pence also dodged the question at last week's vice presidential debate.

Trump then repeated several misleading claims about mail-in ballots and early voting, a frequent talking point of his that he has not been able to sustain with evidence. 

After the town hall wrapped, a masked Biden continued to talk to socially distanced voters in the audience. He was still with them 20 minutes after the event wrapped. 

At one point during the event, he pledged to a voter to stick around and continue to talk about issues. In a crucial and diverse state like Pennsylvania, it’s one of the few chances he gets to talk (almost) face-to-face with voters of different backgrounds at once during the pandemic.

“We are going to take care of DACA, we’re going to take care of Dreamer, it’s working right now, we’re negotiating different aspects of immigration and immigration law,” the president claimed on Thursday night. “We’re working very hard on the DACA program.”

The idea that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program "is working right now" is extremely misleading. The president’s administration began rejecting new applicants to the program this summer about a month after the Supreme Court blocked the White House from ending the program completely.

In its ruling, the high court found that his administration was “arbitrary and capricious” in its attempt to end the Obama-era program. Existing applicants also must reapply every year, but remain in the program.

Pressed on this point by moderator Savannah Guthrie, Trump claimed his administration curtailed the program “because of the pandemic, much changed on the immigration front. Mexico is heavily infected.”

This is outright false. Trump's administration credited the change to the Supreme Court ruling in a press release.

What's more, DACA benefits some immigrants whose parents brought them to the U.S. as young children, not people coming in from Mexico in the present. The program confers certain protections from deportation and permission to legally work. Trump also referred to "Dreamer" Thursday night —  DACA recipients are commonly known as "dreamers," based on proposals that would have afforded similar protections for young immigrants that never passed Congress.

The Trump campaign is out with a statement following the conclusion of both candidates’ town halls, focusing its criticism on the moderators. 

“Even though the commission canceled the in-person debate that could have happened tonight, one occurred anyway, and President Trump soundly defeated NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in her role as debate opponent and Joe Biden surrogate. President Trump masterfully handled Guthrie’s attacks and interacted warmly and effectively with the voters in the room,” Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said. 

“Over on ABC it was a completely different scene, as once again Biden was kept comfortable and away from any questions that might challenge him,” he argued.

Trump defended his push to confirm a Supreme Court justice with weeks to go before the election by paraphrasing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose seat he is attempting to fill after her death in September.

“When a president is elected, they're elected for a period of four years. And Justice Ginsburg said it best, I think talking about President Obama, having to do with somebody else, that the president is put there for four years, not for three years,” Trump said Thursday. 

Trump is referring to comments Ginsburg made at Georgetown University on Sept. 7, 2016, when asked if there were any "valid constitutional arguments that would prevent President Obama" from filling the seat vacated after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Although Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat in March, the GOP-controlled Senate did not hold hearings for Garland.

During that 2016 event, Ginsburg replied: “The president has the authority to name appointees to the Supreme Court, but he has to do so with the advice and consent of the Senate. And if the Senate doesn’t act, as this current Senate is not acting, what can be done about it?”

“I do think that cooler heads will prevail, I hope sooner rather than later. The president is elected for four years, not three years, so the power that he has in year 3 continues into year 4,” she continued.

Trump was also asked Thursday why he now supports confirming a justice so close to an election after arguing the opposite in 2016. He justified it by pointing to now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh's contentious confirmation proceedings.

During an exchange about the Green New Deal with ABC's Stephanopoulos, the host noted that Biden says he's "not for it, but in your website it, you call it a crucial framework."

Biden replied, "My deal is a crucial framework. But not the New Green Deal."

That is not true, and it mischaracterizes how similar Biden's own plan to combat climate change and environmental racism and push clean energy sources and environmental justice are to the Green New Deal — an ambitious environmental policy plan supported by progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

While Biden doesn't explicitly support the Green New Deal, his own plans feature similar provisions, and his campaign website literally cites it as a "crucial framework" — meaning his denials ring false.

Over the summer, Biden released a $2 trillion plan that emphasized building new energy efficient infrastructure projects and cutting fossil fuel emissions.

Under his plan, Biden would, if elected, increase clean energy use in various areas (including transportation, electricity and buildings), and have the U.S. achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. The plan would also create 10 million clean energy jobs, according to his campaign website, with a focus on renewable energy, small nuclear reactors and grid energy storage, among other initiatives.

Biden's plans adopt many of the same pillars of the Green New Deal. One of his campaign documents even says that "Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face." In addition, release of these plans were celebrated by many of the same groups that had touted the Green New Deal.

Biden's plans do, however, omit some of the Green New Deal's more controversial elements, such as "Medicare for All," a federal jobs guarantee and a strict zero carbon-emissions mandate.

Another critical difference is that, while Biden's plan calls for the U.S. to get to a "100 percent clean energy economy and net-zero emissions" by 2050, the Green New Deal wants it done by 2030 — a distinction Biden explicitly outlined on Thursday.

"The difference between me and the New Green Deal, they say automatically by 2030, we’re gonna be carbon free. Not possible," he said. "The New Green Deal calls for the elimination of all non-renewable energy by 2030. You can’t get there. You’re gonna need to be able to transition, George. To transition to get to the place where we invest in new technologies that allow us to get us to a place where we can get to net zero emissions."

In a statement to NBC News following the town hall, a Biden campaign official further outlined the differences between Biden's plan and the Green New Deal.

"When Biden laid out his own climate plan, he acknowledged that the Green New Deal is a crucial framework — or structure — to arrange thinking on climate because it includes two truths that he carried into his own plan," the official said. "The urgent need for action, and a recognition of the interconnectedness of our environment and economy. You can see those truths in his plan. But his plan is very much the Biden plan."

Biden was asked by a voter about what he would do if he lost the election to keep pressure on Trump on issues of racial justice and what he would do to help unify the country.

Biden had little hope that the country might be able to come together if Trump wins a second term.

“To be very honest with you, I think that will be very hard. Things have not lent themselves to him learning about what's come before,” Biden said. 

Biden said that Trump had employed a strategy of “conquer and divide” and that the president “does better if he splits us.”

“You will not hear me race-baiting, you will not hear me dividing. You will hear me trying to unify,” Biden said of his potential presidency.

Stephanopoulos asked Biden what it would say about the country if he loses. 

“It could say I was a lousy candidate, I didn’t do a good job,” Biden said. 

Biden took a question from a voter who has a trans child and how he would protect trans rights in his administration. 

He took aim at the policies Trump has made to exclude trans Americans from the military and getting other protections, which the former vice president said he would swiftly reverse. 

He also acknowledged the disparities trans women of color face, particularly Black trans women and noted the high murder rate. The Human Rights Campaign has noted that at least 30 trans or gender non-conforming Americans were violently killed in 2020 so far.

Biden said Thursday, "I do not propose banning fracking."

"I think you have to make sure that fracking is, in fact, not admitting methane or polluting the well or dealing with what can be small earthquakes in how they’re drilling. So it has to be managed very well," he added.

While it's true Biden has said he will not ban fracking, his position is complicated.

The policies he has released call only for no new fracking on federal lands. His policy also allows for existing fracking on federal lands to continue, and existing and new fracking on privately owned land to continue.

Biden, however, has also called for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — a plan that would include a systematic departure from the use of fossil fuels, which has implications for fracking.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos brought up at the town hall the apparent contradiction in a follow-up question, noting that "not everyone buys your denial" that he won't ban fracking and pointing to a quote from a member of the Boilermakers Local 154 union who told The New York Times that "you can't meet your goal to end fossil fuels without ending fracking."

Biden responded by saying that he had discussed the issue with the union "and went into great detail with leadership on exactly what I would do."

Biden, including in that response, has yet to explicitly say how or when that move away from fossil fuels would affect fracking. President Donald Trump has used Biden's proposal to tell audiences, inaccurately, that his opponent wants to ban fracking now.

Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, is a practice used to tap into natural gas reserves deep below the earth's surface. It's a critical issue in states like the battleground of Pennsylvania, where the practice has brought economic prosperity to several once-impoverished areas. It is controversial because many of the chemicals used in the process are toxic to humans and have been known to cause serious health problems in populations near fracking fields.

 "We’ve built now over 400 miles of border wall, southern border,” Trump said.

Trump's administration says he's built 360 miles as of Oct. 12. The bulk of it is replacement wall for older barriers, while a small portion of that figure consists of brand new wall.

Responding to a voter question, Biden said that while Trump has done some good on foreign policy, his strategy of “America first” has translated into “America alone.”

“I do compliment the president on the deal with Israel,” Biden said. “But if you take a look, we’re not very well trusted around the world.”

Trump said that "we are always protecting people with pre-existing conditions" during his Thursday town hall, attacking Obamacare while reiterating his unkept campaign promise to replace the health care law with something better and cheaper.

We’ve fact checked the claim about pre-existing conditions at length before, and it’s still false. Trump has long insisted that he and the GOP will protect people with pre-existing conditions from losing their health insurance — but he has pursued legislation, litigation and executive actions to dismantle those protections under the Affordable Care Act. 

A Republican bill backed by Trump included ACA state waivers that would allow insurers to charge higher prices to people with pre-existing conditions, potentially pricing them out of the market. It passed the House and died in the Senate in 2017, with Republicans not coalescing around a new, comprehensive health care plan since.

Trump has also used executive actions to expand the use of short-term insurance plans that aren't required to cover pre-existing conditions.

His administration has argued that the Supreme Court should overturn the law in a case it will hear next month. When asked about that lawsuit, Trump defended it and said Republicans will "replace it with a much better health care at a much lower price and always, under all circumstances...protect people with pre-existing conditions." 

Trump recently signed a symbolic executive order affirming the protections Obamacare created and directing his administration to limit surprise billing. But the order had little effect on existing law.

After Trump's town hall concluded, MSNBC cut into anchor Rachel Maddow's nightly broadcast.

Maddow started her show by saying, "Well, that happened."

Biden said he would not ban fracking, a topic that his critics have seized on since his running mate, Kamala Harris, has previously said she would ban it and his position on it has slightly shifted. 

Harris has since aligned herself with Biden, who told a voter at tonight’s town hall worried about the environment he would put more stringent regulations on the practice, which is an important industry in Pennsylvania and other states. 

He also laid out his plan on transitioning the country to cleaner, renewable energy sources to fight climate change. Despite his staunch position to not ban fracking, this is likely to be a pressing issue up until election day as President Trump criticizes Biden over the issue.

Biden, responding to a question about the 1994 crime bill, which he co-wrote as a senator, acknowledged that "it had a lot of other things in it that turned out to be both bad and good."

During a discussion with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Biden said that he was against the bill's provision that helped fund state prison systems — a provision that critics have frequently said contributed to "mass incarceration."

So what's this all about?

The 1994 crime bill earmarked billions for new prisons and encouraged states to keep criminals behind bars for years by offering special grants. It also instituted a federal "three-strikes" life sentence mandate, among other things. After the bill was enacted, crime dropped and incarceration rates skyrocketed.

"The crime bill, however, was just the most high-profile legislation to increase the number of people behind bars," New York University's Brennan Center for Justice concluded in a 2016 analysis. "On their own, states passed three-strikes laws, enacted mandatory minimums, eliminated parole, and removed judicial discretion in sentencing. By dangling bonus dollars, the crime bill encouraged states to remain on their tough-on-crime course."

Trump’s hour-long town hall lacked substantive answers about his policy agenda for the next four years, despite being given ample opportunity to lay out a vision for a second term. 

When asked how he would get the economy back on track, Trump said "It's happening." On health care, the president said "I want to give great health care." And on the DACA program, Trump said "we're going to take care of Dreamers."

In his final question, Guthrie asked Trump to tell the American people why he deserves another term.

"Because I've done a great job," Trump said. 

If Biden wins, he will not call for an investigation into the Trump administration — he would leave that to the Justice Department to decide.

Biden said he does not believe in political revenge and unlike President Trump, would rely on a completely independent Justice Department and hire prosecutors that pick and choose their own cases based on the law. 

Trump has criticized the attorney general repeatedly and also pushed the traditionally nonpartisan department to go after rivals and represent him in personal lawsuits. 

It’s an important question given that former special counsel Robert Mueller laid out instances of obstruction of justice by the president in his report on Russian election interference but declined to prosecute.

During an exchange about the 1994 crime bill that Biden co-authored, ABC News moderator George Stephanopolous noted that the bill "funded 100,000 police," prompting Biden to note that the officers placed on the streets conducted community policing, which caused crime to drop. 

"You've often said that more cops clearly mean less crime," Stephanopolous said. "Do you still believe that?

"Yes, if in fact they're involved in community policing, not jump squads," Biden replied. "For example, when we had community policing from the mid-90s on until Bush got elected, what happened? Violent crime actually went down precipitously."

Is that true?

Biden's fudging a bit here, according to government reports. The 1994 crime bill did help reduce violent crime, but whether that was a direct result of the bill's Office Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants has been disputed. Estimates also suggest that the COPS grants did not lead to a full 100,000 new police on the streets.

At passage, the crime bill aimed to put 100,000 more cops on the streets. A 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found the bill resulted in about 88,000 additional officers.

The 2005 GAO report found that COPS had a "modest" effect on the drop in violent crime but noted "factors other than COPS funds accounted for the majority of the decline in crime during this period."

“We just hit a record, 11.4 million jobs,” Trump said Thursday, pointing to recent job gains after historic pandemic losses. “So people were saying we're going to have a 42 percent unemployment. Look, this was a thing that came into our country, and it happened 100 — more than 100 years ago, and it happened now. We're talking about a 42 percent unemployment rate.”

He continued: “Just came out at 7.8 percent unemployment and people can't even believe it.”

The president is wildly inflating the economy’s successes here, as well as projections for the unemployment rate. The U.S. has replaced 11.4 million of the 22 million jobs that were lost in March and April because of the pandemic, though job growth is slowing and economic predictors suggest the recovery may be slowing.

But the U.S. was never facing 42 percent unemployment — economists predicted 20 percent unemployment. Additionally, this isn't the first time 42 percent unemployment has made its way into a false economic claim by the president. Back in 2015, Trump falsely claimed the “real” unemployment rate was 42 percent; at the time, it was 5.1 percent, PolitiFact reported.

Trump said he never spoke with Judge Amy Coney Barrett about how she would vote if the results of the election were contested in the Supreme Court. 

“I think she will have to make that decision. I don't think she has any conflict at all,” Trump said. “I never asked her about it. I never talked to her about it.” 

Trump said he also never talked to Barrett about how she would vote on a challenge to Roe v. Wade, but refused to say where he personally stood on abortion rights. 

“I don't want to do anything to influence anything right now,” Trump said. 

Trump in 2016 said he would appoint judges who would strike down the landmark abortion ruling.

Biden continued to dodge questions about his position on court packing when asked about Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. 

The former vice president stuck to his talking point that he would not talk ad nauseam about adding additional justices to the court because it would be a distraction from what he suggested is a hypocritical process by the Republicans. 

Biden previously said he does not like court packing and conceded at tonight’s town hall that he is “not a fan,” but said he will let voters know his full position depending on how the Senate handles Barrett’s confirmation.

He said her nomination puts health care and other issues in jeopardy.

In response to a question about accepting the results of the 2020 election, Trump insisted Thursday that voter fraud was rampant. 

"When I see thousands of ballots, right, unsolicited ballots being given out by the millions and thousands of them are dumped in dumpsters and when you see ballots with the name — Trump military ballots from our great military and they're dumped in garbage cans," he said.

Moderator Savannah Guthrie pointed out that the president was referring to anecdotal reports, adding, "Your own FBI director said there's no evidence of widespread fraud."

Trump responded: “Oh, really? Then he's not doing a great job. 50,000 in Ohio, the great state of Ohio. 50,000 in another location, I think North Carolina. 500,000 applications in Virginia. No, no. There's a tremendous problem.”

This is not true. Numerous studies have debunked the notion that there is substantial, widespread voter fraud in American elections, whether those elections are conducted predominantly by mail or otherwise.

Trump is citing election infrastructure errors — like 50,000 flawed absentee ballots sent out in one county in Ohio and later reprinted by officials, or a half million absentee ballot application that were mailed by a nonpartisan group encouraging mail voting that included inaccurate return mailing addresses — as proof of fraud, instead of what they are, which is errors and inefficiencies.

There have been reports of misdirected ballots found in dumpsters — like 100 blank ballots found in Kentucky — but that does not automatically indicate fraud. There are numerous safeguards in place, such as signature matching, to ensure that only eligible voters can cast a ballot.

There's no reason to believe either of these errors will result in fraudulent ballots being counted. Only verified and registered voters can cast a mail ballot. 

As voters ask Biden a question on a variety of topics, Biden has been able to answer the questions at great length with very little interference from the moderator. 

Stephanopoulos has interjected and pressed Biden further, but the floor largely belongs to Biden as he interacts with voters.

It could be good prep to hone his answers for the next presidential debate a week from today.

Trump was asked about the recent The New York Times report about his tax documents, which alleged that he's deeply in debt. Asked whom he owes money to, Trump declines to say whom or what he owes.

Trump claims that it is a small amount of money (he reportedly is on the hook for loans worth around $421 million), and also says that the number is wrong. 

Asked if he'll release his taxes, Trump dodges again.

When pressed as to why he has been unable to shepherd a new round of coronavirus relief, Trump said, "You ever hear a word called negotiation?"

Talks over another coronavirus bill have been a bit of a mess in Washington, often with the president derailing progress and changing his mind at the last minute, catching lawmakers off guard and sending everyone back to square one.

Trump attempted to place much of the blame on Nancy Pelosi, saying that "the problem you have is Nancy Pelosi. She couldn't care less about the worker."

Guthrie then pointed out that Republicans lawmakers have also clashed with Trump on the size of the relief bill.

President Trump, during Thursday's NBC News town hall, once again accused the Obama administration of spying on his campaign — a claim that Trump has made on numerous occasions and remains false.

"They talk about the peaceful transfer," Trump said, about questions posed to him about whether he would accept a peaceful transfer of power if he loses in November. 

"They spied on my campaign and they got caught," he said, a reference to his claim about the Obama administration. 

A review conducted by the Justice Department’s own watchdog deemed in December that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — a probe that deeply touched the 2016 Trump campaign — was justified.

The 434-page report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz raised questions about the FBI's use of confidential human sources to gather information from individual members of the Trump campaign. FBI officials said it was a normal investigative technique, but the inspector general questioned whether there should be special guidelines when it comes to political campaigns.

The report did, however, clearly refute the notion that the FBI placed a "spy" in the Trump campaign.

"We found no evidence," the report said, that the FBI sent any confidential sources to join the Trump campaign, or sent them to campaign offices or events, or tasked them to report on the Trump campaign.

The inspector general said he examined more than a million documents and interviewed more than 100 witnesses to reach the report’s conclusions.

Biden was pressed by a young Black voter, one of the crucial voting blocs in this election, about how to energize that base, which is more likely to not vote for either candidate. 

Biden has large support among Black voters, but is lagging in younger Black voters. He has also been sharply criticized for some of his past comments on race, such as saying “you ain’t Black” in response to a question of what he would say to a Black voter who votes for Trump. 

The former vice president did deftly answer the question, however, by talking about making systemic changes to American institutions from criminal justice to homeownership to early childhood learning to closing the racial wealth gap between Black and white Americans.

Biden said Thursday that he recognized as early as February, writing in an editorial for USA Today, that Covid-19 was a "serious problem," while accusing Trump of having "denied it."

"We later learned that he knew full well how serious it was when he did an interview with...Bob Woodward, and at the time, he said he didn’t tell anybody because he was afraid Americans would panic."

The facts show that Trump downplayed the severity of the pandemic.

Here’s what Trump said in the early days of the pandemic.

— “We have it very much under control in this country,” Trump said Feb. 23.

— “It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for.  And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner,” Trump said Feb. 26

— “It’s going to disappear.  One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” he said February 27. 

— “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it,” Trump said March 7, when asked by a reporter if he was worried about the virus.

And in interviews with journalist Bob Woodward, referenced by Biden, Trump revealed he knew the virus was deadly and admitted playing it down.

"You just breathe the air and that’s how it's passed," Trump told Woodward on Feb. 7, according to The Washington Post. "And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus."

In a March 19 interview, Trump acknowledged he'd been playing down the threat from the start.

"I wanted to always play it down," Trump said. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

Trump on Thursday claimed that original projections for coronavirus deaths in America said the country would lose 2.2 million people to the virus. 

“We were expected to lose, if you look at the original charts from original doctors who are respected by everybody, two million [and] two hundred thousand people," Trump said. 

This is misleading. Trump is referring to a model published on March 17 by Imperial College London, which did predict that 2.2 million people in America could die from the virus, but only if no mitigation efforts whatsoever were in place.  

In late March, White House Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told NBC's "TODAY" that the projection of 1.6 million to 2.2 million deaths referred to what could happen if America did "nothing" to stop the spread of the virus.

"If we do things together, well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities," Birx said at the time. 

As of Thursday evening, there have been 218,744 deaths attributed to the virus in America, according to NBC News data. 

Even after being diagnosed with Covid-19, Trump refused to acknowledge the importance of wearing a mask. 

A Miami voter asked Trump if his own experience had made him think differently about wearing a mask, to which Trump responded: "No, because I was OK with the masks. I was good with it. But I have heard many different stories about masks."

Trump inaccurately cited different studies which he claimed cast doubt on the impact of mask-wearing. When Guthrie pushed back, noting that if everyone wore a mask the U.S. could see a significant decrease in cases, Trump appeared to give in.

“Savannah, I say wear the masks," he said. "I am fine with it."

The first half of the town hall focused almost entirely on the virus.

Biden on Thursday said at the ABC town hall, "You had in one in five, one in six, minority businesses closing, many of them permanently" because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This appears to be true — and Biden may be understating the closures.

According to a study conducted by Stanford University, more than 1 million black-owned businesses in the U.S. were open in February 2020. But by April, 440,000 black business owners had closed, a drop of more than 40 percent.

“What we’ve done has been amazing, we’ve done an amazing job,” Trump said on Thursday, claiming that the U.S. is “rounding the corner” with the pandemic.

This is false. The U.S. is facing an uncontrolled outbreak and there are few signs of a turnaround. The U.S. has more cases than any country, with more than 8 million, and more deaths than any country, recently surpassing 218,000.

Cases are high and rising in 28 states; cases are low and rising in 19 states, according to New York Times data. 

Trump is asked to denounce QAnon. He does not.

Instead, Trump says he doesn't know about QAnon except that they're against pedophilia, which he says he agrees with. It's at least the second time that Trump has had a chance to put QAnon to rest and avoided it. 

"I know nothing about QAnon," he told Guthrie.

Guthrie pushes Trump hard on whether he knows about QAnon, and Trump pivots to ask her why she's not asking about antifa. 

An undecided voter in this election, who voted for President Trump in 2016, asked Joe Biden about his running mate’s comments on taking a vaccine approved under the president. 

Sen. Kamala Harris said during the vice presidential debate last week that if Trump announces a Covid-19 vaccine she wouldn’t take. 

Biden walked a tight line answering the question because Harris was criticized for undermining public health by making the remark. Biden continued to say he would trust doctors and public health experts, but noted that the president has made outrageous comments related to the virus and has also sowed seeds of doubt about treating it.

Biden on Thursday said at the ABC town hall, "President Trump says things like, everything from ‘that's crazy stuff,’ then he walks away and says inject bleach in your arm and that's gonna work."

That comment is inference to Trump's suggestions that people should inject bleach in their arm to effectively fight off Covid-19.

Trump did indeed speculate that an injection of disinfectants like bleach could have a curative effect. 

"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" Trump said during a news conference at the White House in April, after a briefing from a Homeland Security official who described the ability of disinfectants like bleach to kill the coronavirus on surfaces. 

"Because, you see, it gets on the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So that you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds — it sounds interesting to me."

Trump came under fire in the last debate after he failed to denounce white supremacists and the Proud Boys.

“I denounced white supremacy for years,” Trump claimed, complaining that Guthrie and other people in the media keep bringing up the topic.

But Trump repeatedly dodged attempts to get him to condemn these groups that have expressed support for him, despite being given multiple opportunities to do so.

Trump wrongly characterized a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study when he claimed that "they came out with a statement that 85 percent of people who wear masks catch" the coronavirus.

That is an inaccurate read of a Sept. 10 CDC report — the study found that people who contracted Covid-19 are more likely to have eaten in a restaurant. The lead researcher says the research is actually “mask neutral” and that the data was based on self-reports and not designed to argue for or against mask wearing.

The CDC tweeted on Wednesday that “the interpretation that more mask-wearers are getting infected compared to non-mask wearers is incorrect.”

All the available evidence suggests that masks help slow the transmission of the coronavirus. A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs showed that Covid-19 transmission slowed after states implemented mask requirements. Scientists believe this is because masks reduce the amount of respiratory droplets spread by the wearer. 

While some masks appear ineffective at slowing the spread of the coronavirus (like very thin masks or masks with valves), the concept of masks is not up for debate. Trump has been criticized for not aggressively promoting the use of masks, and for refusing to appear in public wearing one until months into the pandemic. 

When asked whether he supported herd immunity, Trump responded: “The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself.” 

Trump then launched into attacks against Democratic governors who implemented stay-at-home orders and closed businesses, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was recently the victim of a foiled kidnap plot. She has blamed Trump for being "complicit" in the vitriol against her.

Trump’s audio is echoing through his microphone. 

The outdoor stage setup carries sound differently than an indoor stage. 

Savannah Guthrie kicked off Trump's event by asking about his Covid-19 diagnosis and treatment. She also asked whether or not he got tested before the first presidential debate.

Trump said he was unsure whether or not he got tested for the coronavirus the day of the presidential debate, as was required by the debate commission. “Possibly I did, possibly I didn’t,” Trump said, adding that he gets “tested all the time.” 

Trump said that he “didn’t feel good” or “strong” when he had the virus but he again refused to say whether or not he had pneumonia. His doctors have not answered questions about whether or not his lung scans showed signs of pneumonia. 

“They said the lungs are perhaps a little bit different, a little bit infected,” Trump responded. 

The ABC town hall with Biden has kicked-off in Pennsylvania. The second presidential debate was supposed to take place tonight, but since President Trump contracted Covid-19, the debate commission moved to a virtual debate, in which Trump refused to participate. 

The first question was on Covid-19, with a voter asking how a Biden he would handle the pandemic compared to Trump, who has been criticized for his administration’s response. 

Biden excoriated Trump for how he has communicated to the American people and a national, coordinated public health response and a nationwide standard to slow the spread. 

George Stephanopoulos, who recovered from Covid-19 earlier this year, is moderating the town hall.  

Biden’s town hall, hosted by ABC, is taking place in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state and the birthplace of the former vice president. 

Biden is at 51 percent while President Trump is at 44 percent among likely voters, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Trump is participating in a competing town hall airing on NBC tonight in Florida, another vital state to win the election. 

Both candidates have campaigned heavily in the state.

Trump takes the stage in Florida tonight trailing slightly behind Biden in recent state polls, but Florida is proving to be one of the most competitive battleground states.

Most polling averages show Biden roughly 4 percentage points ahead of Trump in the state, which is within the margin of error of some polls. 

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed Biden with 49 percent of likely voters compared to Trump’s 47 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points. 

With 29 Electoral College votes, Florida is one of the most critical swing states. Trump carried it by roughly 1 percentage point in 2016.

Biden and Trump have arrived at their respective event sites. Biden pulled up to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia at 7:32 p.m. ET. Trump's motorcade arrived at the Pérez Art Museum around 7:45 p.m. ET.

Biden on Tuesday delivered a scathing review of how Trump’s presidency has hurt senior citizens, telling a group of older voters that his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic — which has been especially deadly to the elderly — suggests he feels they’re “expendable” and “forgettable.”

Biden, speaking to a socially distanced crowd at a senior citizen community center in southern Florida, also hit Trump over his statements on possibly cutting Social Security and his record on lowering prescription drug costs, but saved his breath almost entirely for criticism of how the president’s response to the virus has hurt older people in particular.

“While you're losing precious time with your loved ones, he's been stuck in a sand trap at one of his golf courses, and when he does decide to lift a finger it isn't to help you,” Biden said.

“While he throws superspreader parties at the White House, while Republicans hug each other, without concern of the consequences, how many of you have been unable to hug your grandkids the last seven months?" Biden said.

Read more about Biden's Florida push.

After announcing that a crew member on his flights to Ohio and Florida tested positive, Biden underwent another coronavirus test Thursday. 

"Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected," the campaign said in a statement.

This marks Biden’s fourth negative test since seeing Harris on Oct. 8 and second since traveling to Ohio earlier this week.

C-SPAN announced Thursday that it had it suspended host Steve Scully after he admitted having falsely claimed that his Twitter account was hacked last week.

Scully appeared to seek advice on Twitter last Thursday from a prominent critic of Trump and then denied it.

Scully, who had been scheduled to moderate this week's presidential debate before it was canceled, admitted that he had lied about sending a tweet to former White House adviser Anthony Scaramucci, "for which I am totally responsible."

Scully said he had been relentlessly targeted in conservative news outlets and social media and by Trump himself. And then, at that point, he turned to Scaramucci for advice, Scully now admits.

"Out of frustration I sent a brief tweet addressed to Anthony Scaramucci," Scully said in a statement. "The next morning when I saw that this tweet had created a new controversy, I falsely claimed that my Twitter account had been hacked."

Read more here.

What would a big night in politics look like without Twitter? We might get to find out.

The microblogging platform suffered an extended outage late Thursday afternoon. Some functionality returned at around 7 p.m. ET, but at least some users were still unable to send tweets. DownDetector.org, a website that tracks outages, found that the outage started around 5 p.m. 

It's not uncommon for Twitter to have service issues from time to time. In early October, the site experienced partial outages that lasted for around seven hours. 

Twitter said in a tweet later that the outage was the result of "some trouble with our internal systems" and likely not a hack.

In a new campaign video posted to Biden’s Twitter account, the former vice president and Sen. Kamala Harris sit several feet apart with masks on as they watch videos of Trump speaking at campaign rallies, interviews and in a campaign ad.

The two-and-a-half-minute video shows the Democratic ticket reacting to falsehoods from the president against their health care and economic record and plans. In response to Trump falsely saying at a rally that Biden’s health care plan "would destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions," Harris calls the president "heartless."

Biden says it’s "painful just watching him" as they hear Trump accuse him of wanting "to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country" if elected. 

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has canceled travel through Sunday after two people involved in the campaign tested positive for Covid-19, Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said in a statement Thursday.

Dillon said the campaign learned of the positive tests, of a nonstaff flight crew member and Harris' communications director Liz Allen, late Wednesday. Dillon said Harris was not in close contact with those two, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, within two days ahead of their positive tests. Both Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff tested negative.

Dillion said there is no requirement for Harris to quarantine but that "out of an abundance of caution and in line with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, we are canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, October 18th."

Read more here.

Both town hall venues will have extra coronavirus-related safety measures in place on Thursday.

The Trump event will take place outdoors at the Pérez Art Museum in accordance with guidelines set forth by health officials and consistent with all government regulations. Moderator Savannah Guthrie and the president will be at least 12 feet apart from each other and the audience

The audience will also be socially distanced and required to wear masks, answer a symptoms questionnaire and take a temperature check before entering the outdoor venue.

The Biden town hall at the National Constitution Center, which is being moderated by George Stephanopoulos, will be held in accordance with state and local government health and safety regulations, and guidelines set by health officials, according to ABC.

Last week, Democrats took delight in the spectacle of a 500-golf cart flotilla of Joe Biden supporters parading through Florida's largest retirement community en route to turn in their vote-by-mail ballots.

It was a rare sight: The Villages is one of the most staunchly Republican enclaves in the Sunshine State.

But The Villages isn't just worth watching for its warring buggies and flags. From a data standpoint, it could be the best early indicator on Election Night of a "gray revolt" against President Donald Trump — and who's on track to win Florida.

Trump's campaign assigns so much importance on the 122,000-resident community dubbed "Florida's friendliest hometown" that Vice President Mike Pence visited last Saturday and Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in nearby Ocala on Friday. Biden was in Broward County on Tuesday making a pitch to seniors.

Read more about this pivotal Florida county here.

In politics, there's the ground game, where campaigns try to out-organize each other door-to-door and the airwar, where they spend millions pummeling each other in TV ads. But what about the sea war? 

Hours before Trump's town hall in Miami, a pro-Trump boat parade passed within mere fathoms of a floating billboard commissioned by the Democratic National Committee to display the message "Trump Lied, 215,000+ Died" in the politically turbulent waters of Biscayne Bay.

Democrats, in an unusual act of political trawling, hired the naval billboard for a four-hour tour that saw it ply the waters around downtown Miami and up the Miami river while displaying its message in three local languages, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

"215,000 Americans have lost their lives, including more than 15,000 in Florida, and countless families have been unable to see their loved ones. But Trump — who lied to the American people about the threat of the virus — has tried to pretend the pandemic doesn’t exist, refused to make a plan, and continues to jeopardize the safety of the American people," said DNC War Room spokesperson Lily Adams.

Trump's town hall will take place in the same waterfront location as Biden's last week, the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, but the Coast Guard plans to blockade all water traffic in the area when the president arrives so a real naval battle doesn't break out.

Vice President Mike Pence told the audience at the Faith in America Event in Doral, Florida, that he’s seeing Trump ahead of his town hall tonight.

"Apparently this is the day to be in Miami," Pence said. "I arrived earlier today for a rally, the President is arriving momentarily, and we'll be meeting up at Doral before he has a televised town hall this evening."  

Less than three weeks before Election Day, Joe Biden maintains a double-digit national lead over President Trump, with 6 in 10 voters saying that the country is on the wrong track and that it is worse off than it was four years ago.

What's more, a majority of voters say they have major concerns that Trump will divide the country rather than unite it — the largest concern for either presidential candidate.

Those are the results of a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — conducted after Trump returned to the White House from his hospitalization for the coronavirus — which finds Biden ahead of Trump by 11 points among registered voters, 53 percent to 42 percent.

Read more about the poll here.