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On a split screen, American voters heard dramatically different visions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, at town hall-style dueling events Thursday night, less than three weeks before the election.
The candidates were originally scheduled to participate in the second of three presidential debates in Miami, until Trump abruptly withdrew from the forum after the non-partisan Presidential Debate Committee announced it would be held remotely due to concerns of that the president of EE.
Speaking on NBC News from the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, a militant Trump defended his handling of the pandemic that has killed more than 215,000 Americans, while wrongly claiming that the nation was “turning the corner” in its fight against the virus.
“We are a winner,” he told the moderator, Savannah Guthrie, who challenged his claims. “We have done an incredible job. And it’s turning the corner. And we have vaccines and therapies on the way. “
More than 1,000 miles away, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Biden criticized the president’s response and called for a much stronger national response.
“He missed huge opportunities and kept saying things that weren’t true,” Biden said, noting that Trump acknowledged to journalist Bob Woodward in February that the coronavirus was “more deadly than even his exhausting flu.”
“The president was informed how dangerous this virus was,” said the former vice president.
Shortly after Trump withdrew from the presidential debate, the Biden campaign proceeded to set up a television broadcast with ABC News in Philadelphia and the commission formally canceled the debate.
But Trump, who is lagging further behind in national and state polls on the battlefield, was unwilling to hand over primetime coverage to his opponent. On Wednesday, NBC News announced that it would hold a town hall with Trump in Miami on Thursday night, at the same time that ABC will broadcast its forum with Biden.
Speaking on Fox Business before the event, Trump slammed NBC News, saying they were “tending him tonight” in what equaled “one free hour on TV.” And he witnessed the event during a rally in North Carolina, swiping at moderator Savannah Guthrie and other network presenters.
“So you know, they set me up tonight, right? I’m doing this town hall with Con-cast, ”Trump said, poking fun at the name of NBC’s parent company. “So I’m doing it and it’s NBC. Worst.”
Trump mocked network host Lester Holt and political director Chuck Todd, while lamenting that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s town hall on the web earlier this month was “intended for children.”
“So they asked me if I would, and I thought the heck, we have a free hour on TV,” he said.
Trump returned to the election campaign this week after his hospitalization for the coronavirus. Before his first public rally Monday night, White House physician Sean Conley said the president had tested negative on consecutive days and was no longer contagious.
Biden’s vice presidential running mate Kamala Harris canceled her trip over the weekend after two people who had traveled with her tested positive for the coronavirus.
The campaign said Harris had not been in close contact with any of the people and has since tested negative for the virus. Biden was also tested for the virus on Thursday, and his campaign said the result was negative.
“It’s just around the corner,” Trump said of the coronavirus, as cases begin to increase across the country.
