Despite the candidates bitter rivalry, the debate in Nashville, Tennessee, was significantly more restrained than their first head to head last month on North America editor John So Paul was watching Joe Biden emerged onto the stage masked with President Massless.

This was identical to the first food fight of a debate, but this was altogether more restrained and all the better for it.

Yes, this shouting had been replaced by a Siris of emoji faces.

I rolls, mock indignation, derisive laughter.

But the exchanges was still sharp.

The president claimed coronavirus was turning a corner.

We have a vaccine that's coming.

It's ready.

It's going to be announced within weeks.

We're learning to live with it.

We have no choice.

We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does, he says that we're you know, we're learning to live with it.

People are learning to die with it.

You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning.

That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch their out of habit where their wife or husband, Waas is gone.

The president went after the Biden family on the son of the former vice president Hunter on the money that he'd made abroad.

You got $3.5 million.

Your family got $3.5 million.

And, you know, someday you're gonna have to explain, Why did you get through?

To have I never got any money from Russia.

But Joe Biden wasn't going to take any lectures from the president about transparency.

You have not released the single solitary year of your tax return.

What are you hiding on?

Dawn Race and racism claim and counterclaim.

Nobody has done more for the black community than Donald Trump.

And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history.

There were harsh words traded over the administration's child separation policy to discourage illegal immigration At the border, babies were separated from their parents on three years on.

There are over 500 Children who have become orphans because the U.

S.

Authorities don't know where the parents are.

The president defended what they've done.

They are so well taken care of there in facilities that were so clean.

Some of them have been good, but they got separated from their parents, and it makes us a laughing stock and violates every notion of who we are As a nation.

Joe Biden sought to portray himself as the healer and unifier Donald Trump as the outsider who fix America's broken politics.

I went to a bar in Nashville where Trump supporters had gathered.

Most striking was how empty It Waas three weeks ago for the first debate, it was rammed with a few 100 people there.

Last night, they were around a dozen.

So will this final debate make a difference to the outcome of the election?

I think that most Americans already decided.

I think it may change a few people's minds, but statistically it just doesn't change that many people's minds.

Debates don't still pretty much undecided.

I think that I'm just disappointed in both candidates.

Donald Trump was much more disciplined, much more effective in the debate last night.

But is it too little, too late?

With only 11 days to go until polling.

And already in the United States, it seems that probably over a third of the electorate have already cast their ballots.

John So Opal BBC News, Nashville, Tennessee.