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MIAMI / PHILADELPHIA: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday (October 16) criticized what he called President Donald Trump’s “panic” response to the coronavirus pandemic, while Trump defended his handling of a crisis that has killed more than 216,000 Americans.
The rivals spoke in simultaneous town halls broadcast on separate television networks after a debate originally scheduled for Thursday following Trump’s COVID-19 election was suspended.
The split-screen showdown offered a stark reminder of the many ways the campaign season has been turned upside down by a pandemic that has prompted more than 18 million people to cast their votes more than two weeks before Election Day on November 3.
Biden, speaking to voters in Philadelphia on ABC, blamed the Republican president for concealing the lethality of the virus that has killed more than 216,000 people in the United States.
READ: Trump and Biden will lead the duels of the city councils, as the first voters flood the polls
“He said he didn’t tell anyone because he was afraid that Americans would panic,” Biden said. “Americans don’t panic. He panicked.”
Trump defended both his response to the pandemic and his own personal conduct, including holding a Rose Garden event at the White House where few wore masks or practiced social distancing, resulting in numerous attendees contracting the disease.
“Hey, I’m president, I have to see people, I can’t be in a basement,” Trump said on NBC in front of an open-air audience of voters in Miami, implicitly criticizing Biden for spending months off the campaign trail as the pandemic. roared.
He did not answer questions about the last time he tested negative before contracting the virus, and said he did not remember exactly.
Trump, who aggressively interrupted Biden during a chaotic debate two weeks ago, showed little interest in altering his belligerent tone, frequently arguing with moderator Samantha Guthrie.
READ: Trump addressed problems and did not change course
He said he “heard different stories” about the effectiveness of the masks, although public health experts in his own administration have said wearing them is key to stopping the spread of the virus.
The president refused to denounce QAnon, the false conspiracy theory that Democrats are part of a worldwide network of pedophiles, first praising his supporters for opposing pedophilia before saying he knew nothing about the movement.
Trump also dodged questions about a two-decade New York Times investigation of his tax returns, which he has refused to publish publicly despite decades of precedent for presidential candidates.
He appeared to confirm the newspaper’s report that he has about $ 400 million in personally guaranteed loans, arguing that the amount was a “peanut” compared to its value. He also did not deny the Times report that he paid only $ 750 in federal income taxes during his first year in the White House, although he said the newspaper’s figures were “wrong” at one point.
EMERGENCE OF EARLY VOTING
The second presidential debate had originally been scheduled for Thursday, but Trump withdrew from the event after organizers decided to turn it into a virtual affair after his diagnosis two weeks ago. A final debate is still scheduled for October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee.
READ: Americans Voted Early in Record Numbers in Presidential Election
Trump, who spent three days in a military hospital but has since returned to the election campaign, is trying to alter the dynamics of the race. Reuters / Ipsos polls show Biden has a significant national advantage, although his advantage in battle states is less pronounced.
North Carolina, a highly competitive state, saw long lines when it began more than two weeks of early voting in person on Thursday, following record turnouts in Georgia and Texas earlier in the week.
About 18.3 million Americans have voted in person or by mail so far, representing 12.9 percent of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election, according to the University’s United States Elections Project. from Florida.
Voters are looking to avoid in-person lines on Election Day to stay safe as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to rise, but also to make sure their ballots count. Many are concerned that Trump will contest widely used vote-by-mail ballots, following his repeated claims with no evidence that they were fraudulent.
BATTLE OF THE SUPREME COURT
Senate confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee for a vacant Supreme Court seat, elicited careful responses from both candidates. Republicans lobbied to place Barrett before the election after refusing to do so for former Democratic President Barack Obama’s candidate in 2016, saying he was inappropriate in an election year.
Biden said he was not a “fanatic” of court meetings, the idea promoted by some Democrats to add judges to repeal what they see as a stolen seat. But he refused to dismiss it after moderator George Stephanopoulos pressed him and said: “It depends on how this turns out.”
LEE: Trump’s candidate, Barrett, says that the Supreme Court ‘cannot control’ a president
Trump did not say whether he would like abortion rights to be invalidated, an outcome that many legal scholars believe is more likely with the conservative Barrett in court.
“I think he’s going to make a great decision,” he said. “I didn’t tell him what decision to make.”
US $ 1.5 BILLION
In a sign of Democratic determination to defeat Trump, an enormous amount of money has been poured into the party’s coffers in recent months.
Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue said Thursday it raised $ 1.5 billion online from July to September, the most it had raised in a quarter. By comparison, top Republican fundraising platform WinRed said Monday it raised $ 623.5 million in the same period.
Biden’s campaign raised $ 383 million in September, setting a new record for a campaign in the United States for the second month in a row. The Trump campaign has not released its monthly figures.
Both candidates have been visiting battle states this week, with Trump holding rallies in Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa and Biden traveling to Ohio and Florida.
