Washington: US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival candidate Joe Biden square off for their first Presidential debate on Tuesday night with the shadow of corruption and tax evasion hanging heavily over the incumbent, amid social and racial unrest in times of pandemic.

Exposes over the weekend showing Trump paid as a little as $75 in annual taxes in 2016 and 2017. And none at all in ten of previous 15 years has put his campaign on the defensive even as the Biden camp seeks to drive home the message that the Trump and his Presidency is a confederacy of corrupt plutocrats out to enrich themselves.

Framing their political fight as Scranton Vs Park Street issue, the Biden campaign is presenting the Democratic candidate as a working class icon from a modest background in contrast to a privileged New Yorker. Hours before the debate, Biden released his 2019 tax returns and his campaign called- on Trump, who has come under fire for not releasing his returns, to do the same.

Biden’s taxes showed he and his wife Jill paid over $ 346, 000 in taxes under the payments for 2019 on an income of nearly $ 985, 000 before seeking a refund of nearly $ 47, 000 they said they had over paid the Government. Pre debate surveys show that 86% of voters have already made up their mind about who they will vote and the debate performance won’t make much of a difference to their voting preference.

That still leaves a significance 14% who could make the difference provided Trump Republicans allow the counting process to proceed unhindered. As things stand, Trump’s cohorts are hiring scores of lawyers to litigate counting in various swing states, claiming faulty balloting and corrupt practices in an effort to gridlock the poll.

Tuesday’s debate the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio will be a socially distanced affair before a small Covid- 19 tested audience of about 70 and two candidates not even shaking hands. Lasting 90 minutes, the debate will cover areas such as, “The Trump and Biden records.”

“The Supreme Court”, “Covid- 19”, “The economy”, “Race and violence in our cities” and “The Integrity of the elections”, according to the commission on Presidential debates. As the incumbent, Trump is vulnerable on several planks from his hanging of the pandemic to stoking racial tension to corruption of the kind that has seldom touched the White House in 244 years.

Tax disclosers of Trump generated anger among thousands of work a day people who used the Hash tag # I paid more taxes than Donald Trump Hash tag to show their contribution compared to a billionaire who allegedly bilked the system.