Is Thursday morning too late to keep hoping Donald Trump will pull out of Thursday night’s debate? Because … yikes. Yes, Thursday night is what was supposed to be the third debate but will instead be the second after Trump pulled out of the remote town meeting debate. Trump and his campaign have been making angry noises about this one after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that candidates’ microphones would be muted for parts (though not enough) of the debate, and after moderator Kristen Welker announced her planned topics. According to Team Trump, this debate was supposed to center on foreign policy, except that was never the announced plan.
Welker’s planned topics are fighting COVID-19, American families, race in America, climate change, national security, and leadership. Trump’s hope was to use foreign policy discussion to attack Joe Biden via his son Hunter, but fear not, Trump will get that attack in no matter what. That’s the stated plan from the White House.
No, really:
He’ll answer the questions he wants to answer and the one thing we can be sure of is no matter what, he’ll go after his opponent’s son who has struggled with addiction. Trump is not trying to make a policy or political point. Rather, The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer explains, Trump “possesses a bully’s eye for an individual’s point of greatest emotional vulnerability,” and in that vein, “He’s cruelly lashing Biden, not to explain the relevance of an esoteric scandal that doesn’t directly indict the ethics of his opponent, but because he seems to hope that his raising the subject will induce an unbecoming outburst of emotion onstage.”
Of course, as Foer notes, one of Biden’s strongest moments in the first debate was when Trump interrupted his attempt to talk about his late son Beau by attacking Hunter, and Biden broke through to address his love for his surviving son and pride in Hunter’s efforts to overcome his addiction.
So we know that, no matter that it’s irrelevant to the presidency, Trump will work in attacks on Biden’s son. Key questions about the debate include how Trump will respond to having his mic muted even for the two minutes of Biden’s opening response on each topic. Beyond that, Trump is free to interrupt, though, The Washington Post reports, “Advisers are asking Trump to interrupt less and let Biden talk more.”
Does Trump have the self-discipline to reduce his interruptions? Or maybe he just thinks he knows better than the advisers asking him to do that. We’ll see, but be prepared for another ugly night of interruptions. The other question, then, is how prepared Biden is to do the things that worked best for him in the first debate and continue to hold himself together under the attacks on his beloved son.
The other big question mark is moderator Kristen Welker, of NBC News. Trump has already attacked her, as well, so we know he goes in with a hostile approach to her. Will Welker be able to control his interruptions any better than Chris Wallace, moderator of the first debate? Will he attack her in the debate itself, or wait until afterward?
The debate begins at 9 PM ET and runs for 90 uninterrupted minutes. It’s being held at Belmont University in Nashville. It will air on most broadcast and cable news networks, and you can watch it streaming in many places, including C-SPAN. Daily Kos will have live coverage.