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The two were supposed to have gathered on stage for their second debate Thursday in a town hall format where the two candidates would have answered questions from voters.
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden look into the audience at the end of the first presidential debate at the Case Western Reserve University Health Education Campus on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. Image: AFP
WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump and White House challenger Joe Biden will duel for airtime at televised City Hall events Thursday night after their second face-to-face debate was ruled out. following the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis.
Trump organized the schedule clash by hosting his own town hall on NBC at the same time that Biden had hosted his event on ABC.
The president, a former reality TV star and an enthusiastic fan of viewership figures, will seek to achieve a victory over Biden by drawing a larger audience during prime time at 8:00 pm EST (0000 GMT Friday).
The two were supposed to have gathered on stage for their second debate Thursday in a town hall format where the two candidates would have answered questions from voters.
Organizers of the debate said they wanted to switch to a virtual format for security reasons after Trump contracted the coronavirus, but he refused.
The president, who will be at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami for the hour-long show, has 20 days to reverse the dire poll numbers to win the Nov.3 election and secure a second term.
Biden, who had already booked his appearance last week, will be in Philadelphia to attend his town hall as he tries to secure his favorite status.
NBC said it had received a statement from the clinical director of the National Institutes of Health, Anthony Fauci, that there was “a high degree of confidence” that Trump is now “not spreading infectious viruses.”
Trump and the NBC host will be socially estranged at the outdoor venue and the audience will wear safety masks, NBC added.
Biden has performed frequent coronavirus tests and reported negative results since Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis on October 1.
SCREAMING COMPETITION
The first of three scheduled presidential debates was widely criticized for descending into an angry shouting match when Trump attempted to inflict a belated wound on the Biden campaign.
At a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Trump accused Biden of “choking like a dog” during the debate and unleashed a tirade of lurid insults at his rival, mentally calling him “triggered.”
“He can’t stand up to the lunatics running his party,” Trump told the rowdy crowd in Johnstown.
Continuing his long-standing narrative that Biden, 77, is too fragile for the presidency, Trump, 74, tweeted a grossly false image that he purported to show Biden in a wheelchair.
The attack came as Biden stepped up his own courtship of the senior vote of the elderly, saying at an event at a Florida retirement center Tuesday that Trump “has never focused on you.”
“His handling of this pandemic has been erratic, as has his presidency,” he said.
The coronavirus has claimed more than 215,000 lives in the United States, and Trump himself was hospitalized for three nights after testing positive, derailing his campaign in the crucial final weeks of the race.
An average of national polls from RealClearPolitics sent Biden up 9.8 points, with the Democrat leading Trump by substantial margins in half a dozen key states on the battlefield.
Determined to change course when he hits the ground again this week with back-to-back rallies, Trump’s next campaign stop is Des Moines, Iowa, later on Wednesday.
“Iowa has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic,” said a statement from Biden.
“But President Trump will not come to Hawkeye State to offer words of comfort to those who suffer … he is here to spread more lies about the pandemic and distract from his record of failure.
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