[ad_1]
The final debate between President Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden averaged 55 million viewers Thursday, seven million fewer than the September clash.
Preliminary ratings from Nielsen TV showed that Thursday night’s showdown in Nashville, Tennessee averaged 55.2 million viewers across the six largest broadcast and cable channels in the US.
But compared to the first debate in Cleveland, Ohio, which averaged 62 million viewers on those networks, Thursday’s numbers were an 11 percent drop.
When considering the 73.1 million viewers across all networks, the difference is more than 20 percent.
The final presidential debate between President Trump (left) and Joe Biden (right) averaged 55 million viewers on the six largest television and cable channels.
Final numbers for Thursday’s debate will be released later on Friday, but Fox News Channel has so far moved ahead with a solid lead.
Nielsen, according to Deadline, said Fox News Channel saw 14.7 million viewers, ABC News had 10.7 million and NBC, home to moderator Kristen Welker, came in third with 10.2 million.
CNN fell behind by 3 million to record 7.2 million viewers, while MSNBC had 6.7 million. MSNBC came in last with 5.6 million Americans tuned in.
The FOX network parted ways with its constituents to broadcast the ‘Thursday Night Football’ game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Pictured: President Donald Trump (right) and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden (left) participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University on October 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee
Typically, the first presidential debates are the most popular. The first between President Trump and then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton amassed 84 million.
The first confrontation between former President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney amounted to 67.2 million viewers.
But as Americans continue to battle the coronavirus pandemic and with the memory of the first disastrous debate still fresh, Americans may be disconnected from the night as Election Day approaches.
And a large chunk of Americans have already voted for the future of the Oval Office.
More than 42 million citizens have already cast their vote with only 11 days to go.
Biden is currently the leader, according to the Real Clear Politics Poll Index, in key states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Last night, Biden and Trump exchanged verbal blows on the Nashville debate stage for Hunter Biden’s emails, with the Democratic nominee telling the audience that he ‘never’ took a penny from a foreign power.
Surprisingly, it was Biden who first mentioned Rudy Giuliani, stating that he is being used as a Russian ‘pawn’.
“We are in a situation where we have foreign countries trying to interfere with the outcome of our election,” Biden charged. His own national security adviser told him that what is happening with this friend, he shouldn’t, I will, his friend Rudy Giuliani, is being used as a Russian pawn.
Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, has been the central character in the public posting of emails and photos allegedly of Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop.
Biden mentioned the former mayor of New York City when he lashed out at Trump for failing to call on Russia and other foreign powers for meddling in the election.
In turn, Trump claimed that Biden had enriched himself with foreign dollars along with his son.
I don’t make money with China, you do. I don’t make money with Ukraine, you do. I don’t make money with Russia, you do, ” Trump said.
The president alluded to Tony Bobulinski, a former Hunter Biden business associate that Trump brought to the debate as a guest. But it was only a passing mention given the drama that the Trump campaign had orchestrated just hours before the onstage crash.
The second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden began in Nashville on Thursday at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University with 200 people in the audience.
The night began on the subject of COVID-19 and both Trump and Biden were tested for coronavirus on Thursday and tested negative before meeting on stage.
Before the debate, Bobulinski addressed White House reporters and claimed that he had evidence that the former vice president was aware of his son’s trade deals with China.
“All the e-mail, the e-mails, the horrible e-mails about how much money he was racking up,” Trump said. And Joe, you were vice president when any of this happened.
“ And I think you owe the American people an explanation, why, did someone just have a press conference a little while ago, they were essentially supposed to work with you and your family, but what they said was damning? .
And regardless of me, I think you have to clean it up and talk to the American people. Maybe you can do it right now, ‘the president added.
Biden pointed to reports in the New York Times that Trump had a secret bank account in China and that he barely paid taxes.
“We learned that this president paid 50 times the tax in China, he has a secret bank account with China, he does business in China,” Biden said. Publish your tax returns or stop talking about corruption.
This debate is different from the previous one in that the candidates’ microphones are muted and therefore cannot interrupt each other.
Trump also revealed that he had called his accountants to see how much he had paid in federal taxes, dismissing the reported amount of $ 750 as a ‘filing fee’.
“I prepaid my taxes,” Trump claimed, saying he had paid “tens of millions of dollars.”
“I paid in advance because at some point they think … that I might have to pay taxes, so I already paid it in advance,” he added.
The president also promised: ‘I will release them as soon as I can.’
Biden thought it was ridiculous.
He has been saying this for four years. Show us. Just teach us. Stop playing around, ‘Biden said. “He has been saying for four years that he is going to release his taxes.”
The storm of charges and counter-charges would have been enough to confuse casual viewers who were unaware of the latest revelations about the finances of the candidates or their families.
After helping precipitate the shock by mentioning Giuliani, Biden sought to use him to further his campaign message.
‘You know who I am. You know who is he. You know their character. And you know my character, ‘he said.
‘The character of the country is on the ballot. Our character is on the ballot, look at us closely. ‘
It was a topic that he returned to in his closing comments to the debate. “What’s on the ballot here is the character of this country. Decency, honor, respect, I treat people with dignity. Making sure everyone has the same opportunity.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about Air Force One after participating in the final presidential debate
Trump also found a way to link Biden’s complaints to his own main complaint: the Russia investigation. After Biden tried to link the apparent dumps of information about his son to Russian election interference, the president scoffed.
“You mean that the laptop is now the deception of Russia, Russia, Russia?” Trump asked, incredulous.
‘The laptop is Russia, Russia, Russia? You got to be kidding. Here we go with Russia, ” he said, taking the issue that most endangered his presidency and sparked Mueller’s multi-year investigation and turning it against his rival.
Trump found ways to get into many of his favorite digs as the exchange continued. He called Hunter’s laptop the ‘laptop from hell’. He also found ways to put Biden on his heels by asking when he launched various plans: ‘Why didn’t you do it in the eight years? Biden could only summon a brief response that only hinted at the Republican opposition he once had to grapple with in the House. ‘We had a Republican Congress. That’s the answer, ‘he said, without expanding.
Even with the personal animosity and allegations of corruption, the debate lacked much of the fire from the first meeting in Cleveland, in part because of technological change with the microphones, and possibly because of deliberate decisions by the candidates to contain some of their impulses. Under control.
But a relatively quiet debate that some analysts already called a draw denied Trump a chance to restart the race.
