Joe Biden likes to say, “Here’s the deal.” He just used the final debate to close the deal.

A favorite, much-spoofed Joe Biden expres­sion is to say, “Now, here’s the deal.”

But the for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent used Thurs­day night’s debate with Don­ald Trump to close the deal, piv­ot­ing to address the Amer­i­can peo­ple and not the wretched, fab­ri­ca­tion-spout­ing noise machine with whom he shared the stage.

Trump was wing­ing it, mak­ing stuff up on the fly and return­ing to his great­est hits, which are many cas­es his nas­ti­est and most insid­i­ous lies.

The incum­bent doesn’t read his brief­ing mate­ri­als, and obvi­ous­ly did not prep for a debate that was his last oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn around an election.

The first break point came with talk of the coronavirus.

The nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic “will go away. And I say, we’re round­ing the turn. We’re round­ing the cor­ner. It’s going away,” said Trump.

He has recit­ed vari­a­tions of that state­ment thir­ty-eight times in recent months.

“Learn­ing to live with it! C’mon. We’re dying with it,” Biden retorted.

In fact, 1,100 Amer­i­cans died of SARS-CoV­‑2, the nov­el coro­n­avirus, the day before the debate, with the death toll now past 220,000.

Trump did not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to repeat his sev­en­ty-two inter­rup­tions of the first debate on stage in Nashville. Kris­ten Welk­er of NBC News did the best job of keep­ing big cats in their place since I watched famed lion tamer Clyde Beat­ty as a lit­tle kid at the cir­cus. Hav­ing a pro­duc­tion staff with a mute but­ton helped.

With Trump, as ever, every­thing was about him.

The man lacks empa­thy, which is a cen­tral Biden attribute. Asked about his minus­cule tax bill in 2016 and 2017, the incum­bent called $750 a “fil­ing fee.” Biden talked of pub­lish­ing his tax returns for the past twen­ty-two years.

The dis­cus­sion lat­er moved to Trump’s dra­con­ian immi­gra­tion and asy­lum poli­cies, with Welk­er bring­ing up the more than five hun­dred immi­grant kids who were sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents at the bor­der, and whose par­ents can­not be found.

Trump threw up an eva­sive flur­ry about kids being brought north by “coy­otes.” Biden coun­tered that they were brought here by and tak­en from par­ents, even nurs­ing moth­ers. “Those kids are alone,” he said. “They have nowhere to go.”

Biden didn’t just counter Trump. He promised to at last deliv­er immi­gra­tion reform, offer­ing undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants a path to legal sta­tus and giv­ing Dream­ers secu­ri­ty in a coun­try where they’ve lived most of their lives.

Biden looked noth­ing like the “Sleepy Joe” moniker Trump has often used. Nor did he show any signs of run­ning out the clock. He took the fight to Trump. The for­mer veep’s bold­est moment came when accus­ing the incum­bent of racism.

At first, debate watch­ers heard the usu­al Trump fak­ery. He claimed to have done more for African Amer­i­cans than any pres­i­dent since Abra­ham Lin­coln, fol­low­ing with anoth­er piece of self-flat­tery: “I am the least racist per­son in this room.”

“Abra­ham Lin­coln here is one of the most racist pres­i­dents we’ve had in mod­ern his­to­ry,” Biden shot back. “This guy has a dog whis­tle about as big as a foghorn.”

The can­di­dates’ clos­ing remarks drove home themes of the debate.

Welk­er asked a sim­ple ques­tion of the can­di­dates: “In your inau­gur­al address, on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2021, what would you say to Amer­i­cans who did not vote for you?”

Trump has voiced no sec­ond term agenda.

He respond­ed to Welk­er by once more defend­ing his response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. And, once more, he attacked Biden for want­i­ng to invest in America.

“If he gets in, you will have a depres­sion the likes of which you have nev­er seen. Your 401(k) will go to hell and it will be a very, very sad day for the country.”

Biden made a sim­ple point, one not often heard in the past four years.

“I don’t see red states or blue states, I see a Unit­ed States.”

At oth­er points dur­ing the debate, Trump cranked up his mean­ness, attack­ing Hunter Biden and imply­ing Joe Biden is soft on Chi­na. Biden coun­tered with Trump’s secret Chi­na bank account, revealed Tues­day in the New York Times.

When Trump returned to Hunter’s busi­ness deal­ings, Biden turned to the cam­era and said, “It’s not about his fam­i­ly or my fam­i­ly. It’s about your family.”

Biden asked a ques­tion Trump has nev­er answered: Has he raised with Vladimir Putin the boun­ty that Rus­sia has put on Amer­i­can mil­i­tary per­son­nel in Iraq?

The inter­con­nect­ed sub­jects of cli­mate action and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion was raised, final­ly, as part of a pre­planned seg­ment devised by Welker.

Biden talked about tran­si­tion­ing away from a fos­sil fuel to a clean ener­gy econ­o­my. Trump trashed wind tur­bines by hyp­ing the prob­lem of bird strike.

And he returned to his accu­sa­tion that Biden oppos­es frack­ing. Once again, how­ev­er, Biden talked to the coun­try and offered a coher­ent goal. Trump deliv­ered his least con­vinc­ing line of the night: “I do love the environment.”

In sum, Trump had his last best chance to turn the cam­paign around. In the words of FiveThir­tyEight’s Nate Sil­ver: “He doesn’t appear to have done it.”

The CNN instant who-won poll came out moments after his tweet.

Its ver­dict? Biden fifty-three per­cent, Trump thir­ty-nine per­cent. Biden went into the debate a fron­trun­ner. He came out of the debate a frontrunner.