From the Trump and Biden Spar affair at town halls


President Trump spoke positively about an extremist conspiracy-themed group, expressed skepticism about wearing a mask, reprimanded his FBI director, and attacked the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a television townhall forum on Thursday, avoiding a centralized campaign appeal. Instead, he fueled the country’s political controversy because of his democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered the message deliberately, keeping in mind public health concerns.

Mr. Trump’s defensive operation came overnight to be discussed between him and Mr. Biden, but after the president’s refusal to participate in a virtual discussion, it resulted in a long-distance study of the controversy on various television networks.

At the central point of the election, the coronavirus epidemic, both candidates appeared to be living not only in different television sets, but also in different universes. Mr. Biden has given strict public health guidelines a full embrace of the centrality of his candidacy, while Mr. Trump has also continued to refute his own government’s recommendations on fundamentals such as the use of masks – a pattern that continues in him. Protesting events on Thursday.

Probably domestic In his very harsh remarks Mr. Trump repeatedly refused to deny the pro-Trump internet community QN, which has been described by law enforcement as a potential threat of local terrorism. The president claimed to have no knowledge of the group, and as a result could not deny it, but then demonstrated an accurate knowledge of one of his main conspiracy theories associated with pedophilia which is completely false.

“I know nothing about this,” Mr. Trump said. “I know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. ”

When NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie forced Mr. Trump to reject the essential worldview of the community, and described some of its most extreme and bogus elements, the president gave no reason: “I don’t know,” he insisted. “No, I don’t know.”

At the same time that Mr. Trump was effectively defending the Internet’s Fringe Corner, former Vice President Mr. Biden was talking about corporate tax rates and quoting business-analysis service Moody’s, drawing an extraordinary gulf separating the two candidates. Their worldviews, policies and connections with real reality.

Mr. Biden said, “It’s a matter of growing the economy,” a political trend that could fit into any general election year – and an illustration of some of Mr. Biden’s central campaign promises: restoring stability and forecasting measures to the White House.

With less than three weeks left in the presidential campaign, there was no sign from townhall events that either candidate was moving away from the political bars he had put in place months ago, and Mr Biden was close to a wide range of popular views on economics. And public health issues and Mr. Trump independently reformed, acknowledging no flaws in his record and killing a variety of provocative provocations.

Indeed, the presentations against him gave the impression that, if the two men were running together on Thursday evening, it would have been as open as their previous discussion, which saw Mr. Trump making and interrupting Mr. Biden for almost two and a half hours. Were. .

Continue with Election 2020

Mr. Biden, sitting in a chair at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, tried to reach out to voters scattered during the mostly empty auditorium and resume business, citing the constant challenges facing the nation, including the coronavirus and his plans to tackle schools. He hoped that he had answered the questions of the voters and concluded his long reply.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, repeatedly flashed impatience with Mr. Guthrie’s constant questioning, feeling particularly upset when he asked to condemn white supremacy (“I condemn white supremacy, okay?”) He replied. Guthrie asked them repeatedly. Accurate information about his recent medical problems, the president mostly resorted to generalizations and declined to say if he had taken a coronavirus test on the day of his first discussion with Mr Biden.

“I probably did, and I took a test the day before and the day before,” Mr. Trump added: “Maybe I did. Probably I didn’t.”

Asked about a recent investigation by the New York Times that revealed he had paid minimal or no income tax over the years, Mr. Trump attacked the report and falsely claimed it was “illegal.” He denied the Russians any money and promised Mrs. Guthrie briefly, “I’ll let you know who I am,” but her verb was not clear, and at one point she listed a variety of miniatures. It has the properties of FileBuster

In his appearance, Mr. Biden also faced a number of issues that have been challenging to him throughout his campaign, including his views on the Supreme Court’s expansion and his record on the 1994 criminal bill. In the interrogation, he indicated that he would clarify his position on the extension of the Supreme Court before election day. And he admitted briefly that he felt it was a mistake to support the crime bill, in which he played a central role, although he immediately suggested that states had trouble figuring out how to implement it.

“Yes it was,” he said, when asked if there was a mistake in supporting it. “But here’s the mistake: here’s what happened in terms of what the states did locally.”

There was no overlap on how Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden addressed the subject of coronavirus.

Mr. Biden, for his part, turned to virtually every aspect of the health crisis handled by the president, including the language on his mask.

“The president’s words are important,” Mr Biden said. “When a president doesn’t wear a mask or makes fun of people like me when I’ve been wearing a mask for a long time, you know, people say ‘well, that shouldn’t be so important.’

The former vice president took note of his advice to medical experts and stressed his competence in scientific judgment on how to deal with the virus and rely on a possible vaccine, while wrapping up some of Mr. Trump’s more foreign remarks about the virus, such as his germs. Medications can help with the virus.

“Crazy stuff,” Mr. Biden said. “I don’t become a fan, though, I mean he really says these things.”

Despite the disease spreading across the country, Mr. Trump insisted that the United States was becoming “corner round” in the epidemic controversy and urged people to use the word “cure” in reference to the cure for the virus. , Though there is no remedy that completes that description.

The president criticized state leaders for ordering a re-lockdown and ousted Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was recently targeted in a kidnapping plot by anti-government terrorists who carried out a personal attack. And despite briefly expressing support for the mask-wearing, Mr. Trump quickly became distorted.

“On masks, you have two stories,” Mr. Trump falsely claimed, adding that most people who wear masks are infected with the virus.

Perhaps notably, Mr. Trump said he would be committed to a peaceful transfer of power after the election – a promise he refused to make in the first debate – although he quickly added qualifications that he would insist on “honest elections” and raised dissatisfaction. Was. Principles about voter fraud. When Ms. Guthrie asked FBI Director Christopher A. Ray said there was no indication of such large-scale voter misconduct when the president fired, “then he’s not doing a very good job.”

As a result of the coronavirus epidemic and resistance to following the public health guidelines outlined by scientists and medical experts in Mr. Trump’s own administration, this unusual split-screen spectacle came in the 2020 campaign. After the president tested positive for the coronavirus this month, the Commission on Presidential Discussions announced that a second scheduled confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden would take place virtually for security reasons. Mr. Trump refused to participate in such an event, which led to his cancellation.

But the president appeared to have other ideas about removing only one of the few opportunities to present side-by-side contradictions with the challenger ahead of the election. Mr Trump and his campaign demanded that the commission revive the debate, as an individual event, and when the petition failed, the president decided to hold a town hall forum with NBC in which Mr Biden had already set up a separate arrangement. Missed. Network.

Mr. Biden had little to lose from a relatively muted evening, as he is consistently ahead of Mr. Trump in national and swing-state elections, while millions of Americans are already voting by early and mail-in ballot.

The Dualing Town Hall incidents came between his first three weeks of hospitalization in early October and his recovery in the following week and in the following week following Mr. Trump’s campaign. The president, despite facing health problems, has clearly decided to return to the election campaign, knowing that time is running out and is eager to dispel any perception among voters that he may be physically weak.

In the events of his campaign so far, Mr. Trump has neither weakened nor objected to the epidemic as a matter of course. His campaign has not implemented a policy of wearing masks or social distance, which has led to a spate of incidents at airport hangars in states like Iowa and Florida, which are facing increasing counts of cases. The president has continued to predict that despite mountains of contradictory evidence, the virus will soon disappear.

The Biden campaign is already preparing the race as a referendum on Mr. Trump’s handling of the public health crisis, highlighting the contradiction between Mr. Trump’s indifference to health guidelines and the former vice president’s more cautious approach.

Mr. Biden, who has served as a U.S. senator for decades from Delaware and has a strong institutionalist disposition, has previously strongly opposed the expansion of the Supreme Court. But in recent weeks, Republicans have rushed to the Supreme Court’s confirmation process despite the ongoing vote, with Mr. Biden repeatedly raising questions on the issue of court packing, and insisting that his focus is on potential judicial threats to the Affordable Care Act and when pressed on the issue. To answer often from the heart.

On Thursday, however, as repeatedly asked by moderator George Stefanopoulos, Mr Biden appeared determined to clarify his position ahead of election day.

“Will you come out with a clear position before election day?” Moderated pressed.

“Yes, depending on how they handle this,” Mr. Biden said while discussing Judge Amy Connie Barrett’s nomination process. He also reiterated his view that he was “not a fan of court packing.”