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The NBC television channel was widely criticized for having arranged an audience with Donald Trump at the same time that Joe Biden participated in another channel.
But they responded by putting a lot of pressure on the president last night.
One question was who was spreading the theories of the QAnon group.
– You’re the president, not anyone’s crazy uncle, exclaimed interviewer Savannah Guthrie.
The idea was for Donald Trump and Joe Biden to meet in the second of three presidential election debates scheduled for tonight. But after Trump was hit by the corona virus, the debating committee decided to remake it, and instead allowed candidates to join via the link.
The president refused and the debate was suspended. Later, the ABC television channel booked Joe Biden for a so-called public hearing in which voters in both camps or who are unsure of either candidate can ask questions.
Anger among Democrats grew when rival television channel NBC hired President Trump that same night and at the same time for an audience in the same style. Many called for a boycott of NBC and said it was unfair to give the president television time while he was the challenger.
Photo: AP
Trump was heavily pressured by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie during the hearing.
Requirements to be tough
More than 100 employees of NBC’s own productions sent an open letter to the television station’s management stating that the decision was to do the American people a disservice.
Therefore, the demands were great on the television channel to be tough on the president. “Huge pressure on NBC to make this a nightmare for Trump,” New York Times media columnist Ben Smith wrote on Twitter.
And interrogator Savannah Guthrie was very tough on the president. Before voters were admitted, he had an introductory interview with Trump in which he asked tough questions and questioned his answers, something that interrogator Chris Wallace was criticized for not doing during the first debate.
Among other things, Guthrie asked if he could distance himself once and for all from the conspiracy theory group QAnon. A few days ago, he drew attention to a statement from the group that Barack Obama had rigged a false arrest of Osama bin Laden and that Joe Biden would lead an operation to hide it all.
– Why do you send such a lie to your followers? she asked.
– It was a retweet. I’m just sending it so people can decide for themselves, Trump responded.
– But you are the president, not the crazy uncle of someone who can retweet anything, exclaimed Savannah Guthrie.
Printed mood
He said that QAnon, among other things, has spread information that Democrats belong to a satanic cult that practices pedophilia.
– I do not know anything about QAnon, said Donald Trump but added that he knows that they are very against pedophiles and fight very hard against them.
The mood was boosted on stage after questions like these and about white power groups that Donald Trump previously had a hard time distancing himself from.
– Why don’t you ask Joe Biden why he doesn’t condemn Antifa? and Donald Trump.
“Because you’re here,” Savannah Guthrie answered.
– How sweet, murmured the president.
Savannah Guthrie also pressed the president for information on when he last tested negative before receiving confirmation that he was infected. She asked multiple times if she was tested on the same day as the first debate against Joe Biden. But she got no answer. “I don’t remember. Maybe, maybe not,” Trump replied.
Questions about when Donald Trump actually knew he was infected have been widely debated in the United States after the president’s doctor, Sean Conley, declined to tell the media.
The hearing was also on Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the pandemic.
– We won. We have done an incredible job. And it’s just around the corner. And we have vaccines and medicines on the way, the president said.
“Compared to the rest of the world, we have the worst death toll,” Savannah Guthrie said.
Photo: AP
It was calmer during the Joe Biden hearing.
Separate worlds
At the same time as Trump’s heated audience in Miami, the tone was much colder when Joe Biden was questioned in Philadelphia on ABC television by voters and news anchor George Stephanopoulos.
The differences were surprising.
It was so quiet that ABC was criticized for allowing Joe Biden to take so much time to think and answer questions. “It might be a good idea if you refined your answers in preparation for next week’s debate,” ABC wrote in its own live report.
Joe Biden was expected to launch a fierce attack on Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic. He believes the president missed enormous opportunities to curb the infection and has repeatedly said things during the crisis that were not true.
He also promised the black population that if he becomes president, he will work for a fairer justice system and improve opportunities for minorities to reach higher levels of society and succeed.
But Joe Biden also received tough questions. He was forced to defend the judicial reform of 1994, which he as a senator was behind.
Eight minutes of laying
George Stephanopoulos asked him if it had been a mistake to support the reform, which was criticized for hitting minorities harder.
– Yes it was. But the mistake lies in how states apply the law locally, Joe Biden responded.
He also said that discrimination problems are different today than they were more than 25 years ago.
“Things have changed dramatically,” Joe Biden said.
He gave an eight-minute presentation on judicial reform without being interrupted, and when he finished, the television station took a commercial break. Joe Biden then turned to questioner George Stephanopoulos and said, “I don’t know if I answered your question.”
How then did the United States react to essentially different audiences?
“Trump was repeatedly held responsible for spreading lies, while Biden got the stable night he needed,” wrote the liberal Washington Post.
“Savannah Guthrie held a debate against Trump as if he was an opponent, while ABC only asked Biden kind questions,” the conservative Fox News headlined on its site.
Positions were no less blocked by this hour of television.
PODD Continent Corona Report
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