WASHINGTON (AP) -- Debate commission adopts new rules to mute microphones to allow Trump, Biden 2 minutes of uninterrupted time per segment. (Then mikes turn back on & candidates have at it.)
Trump will no doubt replicate his gish gallop attacks during the debate trying to force Biden into a stutter as well as introducing disinformation items. In the latter part of the first debate, Trump tried furiously in one barrage, to introduce a number of topics that were subsequently coordinated with the attempt to smear Hunter Biden by the NY Post.
Trump might still pull out? Or is the insistence on foreign policy a cover for some international stunt like a Russian incursion into Ukraine or my personal favorite, a 9/11-type attack on the Trump Towers in Istanbul. If they’re still following the Hunter Biden line of attack, they’re going to fail miserably, since they’ve already blown much of the premise with the whole laptop fiasco.
The Trump campaign is demanding that the Commission on Presidential Debates adjust the topics for the final presidential debate so that the meeting focuses on foreign policy.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien penned a letter to the commission Monday raising objections with the topics announced by moderator and NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker last week, saying the commission should observe “long-standing custom” by making foreign policy the central focus of Thursday’s debate. Stepien also claimed the campaigns had agreed to the third debate being focused on foreign policy.
“As is the long-standing custom, and as has been promised by the Commission on Presidential Debates, we had expected that foreign policy would be the central focus of the October 22 debate. We urge you to recalibrate the topics and return to subjects which had already been confirmed,” Stepien wrote.
Stepien accused Democratic nominee Joe Biden of being “desperate to avoid conversations about his own foreign policy record” and said the commission was trying to alter the course of the final debate in order to “insulate Biden from his own history.”
thehill.com/…
In other news:
Tuesday, Oct 20, 2020 · 6:46:24 AM +00:00
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annieli
The Biden campaign said in a statement Monday that both campaigns and the commission had formerly agreed the debate moderator would choose the topics.
"The Trump campaign is lying about that now because Donald Trump is afraid to face more questions about his disastrous COVID response," Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo said in a statement to CBS News. "As usual, the president is more concerned with the rules of a debate than he is getting a nation in crisis the help it needs."
What was supposed to be the second in-person debate last week was cancelled, with the commission unilaterally deciding to hold it virtually instead given coronavirus concerns, and the president declined to show up. Instead, the two candidates had dueling town halls.
The final debate is set to start at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday.
www.cbsnews.com/...