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Two days before their final televised showdown, US President Donald Trump attacked the upcoming debate as another campaign event that would be “a stacked deck” against him, while Joe Biden’s camp ducked and strategized. on Trump’s expected attacks on his family.
The maneuvers came as both sides prepared for the latest scheduled event that could change the trajectory of the campaign and wrestled with what would mean the debate will feature a mute button for the first time.
Biden did not make public appearances for the second day in a row, while Trump tested lines of attack and, in essence, celebrated his debate prep in public.
In a telephone interview broadcast on Fox and friends, Trump lashed out at the moderator of Friday’s event (NZT), NBC Kristen Welker, as “totally partisan” and tried to portray the issues and rules of the debate as unfair.
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Patrick Semansky / AP
The Committee on Presidential Debates unanimously decided this week to silence each candidate’s microphone during the initial two minutes of his opponent’s comments.
“There are people who can be neutral. Kristen Welker cannot be neutral,” Trump said, adding that she comes from a Democratic family.
An official with the Presidential Debate Committee defended Welker, noting that a Trump official had praised her last week and said both campaigns had agreed to the rules. The president has also complained about previous moderators.
The debate, which will take place in Nashville just 12 days before Election Day, is the clearest opportunity for Trump to change the dynamics of a presidential race whose contours have remained stable despite numerous surprises.
Biden leads Trump by 11 percentage points nationally, 54% to 43%, according to an average of national polls since Oct. 4.
It could also take on additional meaning because the previous matches were so chaotic. The first debate was dominated by Trump’s interruptions and determination to speak out about Biden, and the second showdown was called off after Trump contracted the coronavirus, resulting in separate and grieving city councils.
In the first debate, Trump’s entourage ignored the rules that they had to wear masks, but organizers have signaled that they will not allow such behavior this time.
The Committee on Presidential Debates unanimously decided this week to silence each candidate’s microphone during the initial two minutes of his opponent’s comments on each of the six issues presented. Sponsors of the debate said the change was a way to enforce rules that campaigns had already accepted.
Commission co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. said in a recent interview that the debates needed to be shifted “for the American people to have a better experience” after the first rebel debate.
Melina Mara / The Washington Post
US President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden at the first presidential debate in Cleveland.
He said that Trump’s team had agreed to the rules before that first debate and noted that candidates could come and go for the remaining 11 minutes of each segment.
Fahrenkopf also said that the Trump campaign’s claim that this debate was initially supposed to be about foreign policy was “completely false.”
Some Trump advisers were upset with the change but kept their protests to a minimum because they believed the president’s interruptions in the first debate hurt him, three advisers said.
With two weeks before the election, Biden maintains an unusually light public schedule. In the past four days, he traveled outside of his home state of Delaware just once, to North Carolina on Sunday. On Monday, he recorded an interview with 60 minutes, which will air over the weekend, but held no public events.
Biden’s surrogates have kept a solid travel schedule in place: Kamala D. Harris, his running mate, campaigned in Florida on Monday, and former President Barack Obama is scheduled to hold his first public event for Biden in Philadelphia on Wednesday. .
In any other presidential race, such a low-key approach would be extremely unusual at this point. Yet amid the coronavirus pandemic, it has become an emblem of Biden’s campaign. The former vice president has criticized Trump for holding large rallies in person, calling them “superpreaders” events, and has attended smaller, socially distanced gatherings or car rallies on the road while traveling.
Meanwhile, Trump has taunted Biden for his shorter public hours and continued to tour the country last week, holding demonstrations from Arizona to Pennsylvania as he seeks to regain ground during the final stretch.
Trump has not carried out the same kind of formal preparation as before the first debate, when he received questions from former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Instead, he has answered a few informal questions from advisers like Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks.
Patrick Semansky / AP
People walk outside the Curb Event Center at Belmont University as preparations for the second presidential debate take place.
Trump’s allies, including Christie and former Presidential Councilor Kellyanne Conway, have encouraged the president to change his strategy and let his rival speak more. “My main advice is to let Biden speak. After 60 or 70 minutes, he will be exhausted,” Conway said.
Trump hinted Tuesday that he might indulge. “Actually, the interesting thing is that they said if you let him talk, he will lose his train of thought,” Trump said of Biden on Fox. “There were a lot of people saying to let him talk because he missed the train.
Trump’s advisers have made it clear that they are unhappy with the topics selected for debate, arguing that foreign policy should play a more central role and that Biden should be forced to attend to alleged emails from his son Hunter that were recently published in he New York Post.
Trump’s team argued that foreign policy is traditionally the focus of the final presidential debate, but Fahrenkopf said that hasn’t been the case for years. National security is one of the topics for discussion listed, along with fighting the coronavirus, American families, race in America, climate change, and leadership.
Trump wants and plans to bring up Hunter Biden during the debate, although some of his advisers would prefer that he focus on the economy and Joe Biden’s track record, aides said, describing the former vice president as a liberal who would raise taxes. Trump charged Tuesday that Biden would turn America into a “socialist hell.”
Patrick Semansky / AP
Biden leads Trump by 11 percentage points nationally, 54% to 43%, according to an average of national polls since Oct. 4.
Biden’s advisers, for their part, see little to gain from publicly participating in the details of Hunter Biden’s alleged emails and text messages beyond what they have already said, according to people with knowledge of his thinking. These people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more frankly describe the strategy, said there is no reason to give credibility to a report that comes in part from close Trump allies and has sparked considerable public skepticism. The Washington Post has not independently verified the content of the report.
But ignoring the matter entirely is also not an option, they said, leaving some uncertainty about how Biden will approach it on Thursday night (local time).
“I know how he would react, which would be very angry,” said Senator Robert Casey Jr, a Biden ally, emphasizing that he was not speaking for the campaign. “It’s all just another bundle of lies in a last minute desperate smear campaign.”
Biden showed a flash of anger when asked about the issue last week. “I have no answer. It’s another smear campaign, right up your alley,” he told a CBS News correspondent who asked about the New York Post ‘s reports.
Tensions around the issue were evident on Tuesday. Biden’s spokesman, Andrew Bates, sent a cautionary warning to Trump, who appeared eager to raise Biden’s son. “He invests in these tainted slurs,” Bates said, “because he knows his presidency is a weak and pathetic failure.”
Substance aside, Biden should show he can stand up to Trump in the debate, said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime Biden ally who has been raising money for his campaign.
“He should back up a little, not a lot, a little, so he doesn’t look weak,” Rendell said. “They have been selling this that he is too weak to be president … He has to strike back.”
Questions also remain about how the debating committee will enforce public health guidelines within the room this time.
Trump, as well as several people involved in preparing him for the first debate, contracted the coronavirus after that event, and the unmasked preparation sessions were among the suspected sources of spreading the virus.
Trump has refused to reveal the date of his last negative test before contracting the virus. After Trump was hospitalized with covid-19, the Presidential Debate Committee decided that the second debate would be virtual, prompting the president to withdraw in anger.
Biden has repeatedly said that he would follow the guidelines issued by the commission.
“Look, I’m going to comply with what the CPD rules require,” Biden said during his public meeting when asked if he would require Trump to test negative.
Biden also said he was “confident” that the Cleveland Clinic, which oversees the public health practices of the debates, will ensure adherence to its guidelines.
