No debate about that, but Tuesday was debate night in America, at least for the presidential candidates, and today's show has some highlights for you.

I'm Carla Zeus.

Thank you for watching the format for the face off in Cleveland, Ohio, at Case.

Western Reserve University.

Two candidates, 90 minutes, zero commercials, six subjects.

Lots of questions.

That was the plan for incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The debates moderator.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace got to select the topics, and he'd planned to spend roughly 15 minutes on each of them.

In order to qualify for a presidential debate, candidates have to have the support of at least 15% of voters, as determined by five national polling organizations.

That's the rules set by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which organizes and governs these events.

And that's why Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins were not included in Tuesday's debate.

To prepare for the event, former vice president Biden huddled with his team in Wilmington, Delaware, practicing in mock debates.

Anticipating attacks from the incumbent leader, President Trump huddled with his team in the map room of the White House, practicing in mock debates, anticipating attacks from the former vice president.

Presidential debate coaches say being prepared for attacks and not getting emotional about them is key.

So is being ready for tough questions.

Experts say.

No candidate wants to hear one of those for the first time in the spotlight on the debate stage.

That's why when the topic of Covad 19 came up, a set amount of time was planned for both candidates.

200,000 dead, Askew said.

Over seven million infected in the United States.

We in fact, have 5% of or 4% of the world's population.

20% of the deaths 40,000 people a day are contracting co vid.

In addition to that about between 7 50 1000 people, they're dying.

When he was presented with that number, he said.

It is what it iss what is what it is because you are who you are.

That's why it iss The president has no plan.

He hasn't laid out anything.

He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis Waas.

He knew it was a deadly disease.

What did he do?

He's on tape, is acknowledging he knew it.

He said he didn't tell us or give people a warning of it because he didn't want to panic the American people.

You don't panic.

He panicked.

In addition to that, what did he do?

He went in and we were insisting that the Chinese, the people we had on the ground and China should be able to go toe Wuhan and determine for themselves how dangerous this Waas.

He did not even ask she to do that.

He told us what a great job she was doing.

He said We owe him a debt of gratitude for being so transparent with us.

And what did he do then?

He then did nothing.

He waited and waited and waited.

He still doesn't have a plan.

If we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open.

Millions of people would have died, not 200,000, and one person is too much its China's fault.

It should have never happened.

They stopped it from going in.

But it was China's fault.

And by the way, when you talk about numbers, you don't know how many people died in China?

You don't know how many people died in Russia?

You don't know how many people died in India.

They don't exactly give you a straight count, just so you understand.

But if you look at what we've done I closed it.

And you said he xenophobic.

He's a racist.

And he xenophobic because you didn't think I should have closed our country.

Wait a minute.

You didn't think we should have closed our country because you thought it was, too?

It was terrible.

You wouldn't have closed it for another two months by my doing it early.

In fact, Dr Fauci said, President Trump saved thousands of lives.

Many of your Democrat governor said President Trump did a phenomenal job.

We worked with Governor.

Really?

Go take a look at the governor said I did a phenomenal job.

Most of them said that in fact, people that would not be necessarily on my side said that we got the gowns.

We got the masks, we made the ventilators.

You wouldn't have made ventilators.

And now we're weeks away from a vaccine.

We're doing therapeutics already.

Fewer people are dying when they get sick.

Far fewer people are dying.

We've done a great job.

Of course, that wasn't the only subject or point of disagreement between the two men.

There was a lot of bickering in this debate.

It was chaotic at times.

There were interruptions and insults throughout.

And one priority for the moderator and the Commission on Presidential Debates is to make sure that the candidates each get a fair shot at making their points.

The commission has sponsored every presidential and vice presidential debate since 1987.

It's nonpartisan and it says it doesn't receive funding from the government or any political party or campaign.

That's why when topics concerning the environment and climate change were brought up, the goal was to give each candidate a set amount of time.

I believe that we have to do everything we can tow, have immaculate air, immaculate water and do whatever else we can.

That's good, you know.

We're planting a billion trees, the billion tree project, and it's very extreme believe that human pollution, gas, greenhouse gas emissions contributes to the global warming up.

I think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent, yes, I think, to an extent, yes, but I also think we have to do better management of our forests every year.

I get to call California's Burning California's burning if that was cleaned, if that were, if you had forest management, good forest management, you wouldn't be getting those calls during our administration.

The Recovery act I was able to I was in charge, able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal and gas and oil.

Nobody's gonna build another, uh, coal fired plant in America.

No one's gonna build another oil fired plant in America.

There's so many things that we can do now to create thousands and thousands of jobs.

We can get toe net zero in terms of energy production by 2035 not only not costing people jobs, creating jobs, creating millions of good paying jobs.

The stakes were high for both candidates, who wanted not only to win but to win over voters going into the debate.

A Monmouth University poll found that 74% of American voters plan toe watch it, but here's something interesting on Lee.

3% said they were likely to change their planned vote based on what the candidates said.

Still, they had a lot to say and a lot of ground to cover.

And another topic was titled The Integrity of the Election.

His own homeland Security director, as well as the FBI director, says there is no evidence at all that mail in ballots are a source of being manipulated and cheating.

They said that the fact is that they're gonna be millions of people because of Cove it, that they're going to be voting by mail in ballots like he does by the way he sits behind the Resolute desk and sends his ballot.

The Florida number one number two.

We're gonna make sure that those people who want to vote in person are able to vote because enough poll watchers air their toe, make sure they can socially distance.

The polls are open on time and their polls stay open until the votes are counted.

And this is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he's trying Thio to scare people in the thinking that it's not gonna be legitimate.

Show up and vote.

You will determine the outcome of this election vote, vote, vote.

If you're able to vote early in your state vote early.

If you're able to vote in person, vote in person, vote whatever way is the best way for you.

As faras the ballots are concerned.

It's a disaster.

Eight solicited ballot.

Okay.

Solicited is okay.

You're soliciting your asking.

They send it back.

You send it back.

I did that.

If you have an unsolicited, they're sending millions of ballots all over the country.

There's fraud.

They found him in creeks.

They found some with the name Trump.

Just happen to have the name Trump just the other day in a wastepaper basket.

They're being sent all over the place they sent to in a Democrat area.

They sent out 1000 ballots.

Everybody got to balance.

This is going to be a fraud.

Like you've never seen the other thing.

It's nice.

On November 3rd, you're watching and you see who won the election.

And I think we're going to do well because people are really happy with the job we've done.

But you know what?

We won't know.

We might not know for months because thes ballots are gonna be all over again.

Those were just a few highlights from the two candidates.

First debate For full coverage, please visit CNN dot com.

Now it's time to go behind the scenes on CNN.

10.

The question.

How do we stay objective on our show?

The answer.

We explain it as part of a partnership with a T and T s Youth Voices collective in a Siris of special editions.

They feature yours truly and student questions about journalism.

The first video is available right now.

You can find it at CNN 10 dot com and youtube dot com slash CNN 10.

So you could call that are a T and T s.

Our objective is to stay objective for the sake of objectivity.

TV.

I'm Carl.

Jesus.

We're going to the beach today.

Gold Beach.

It's in Oregon, and it's where we heard from Gold Beach High School who left a comment on our YouTube channel.

Thanks for watching CNN.