Dueling town halls for Trump, Biden after debate plan nixed
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden competed for TV audiences in dueling town halls on Thursday night instead of meeting face-to-face for their second debate as originally planned.
The two took questions in different cities on different networks: Trump on NBC from Miami, Biden on ABC from Philadelphia. Trump backed out of plans for the presidential faceoff originally scheduled for the evening after debate organizers said it would be held virtually following Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis.
The town halls offer a different format for the two candidates to present themselves to voters, after the two held a chaotic and combative first debate late last month. But Trump, speaking on Fox Business on Thursday morning, indicated he had no plans to change his tone going forward.
Trump said of the first debate that “some people said I was rude, but you have to be rude. The guy’s a liar.”
In case anyone remains unaware of Trump’s tactics, Biden warned supporters at a virtual fundraiser that the president would go after him aggressively in the final weeks of the campaign.
“We’ve got 19 days left and you know he’s going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at me,” Biden said Thursday. “And it’s going to be an overwhelming torrent of lies and distortions.”
Trump also preemptively attacked NBC before the town hall, declaring at a rally in North Carolina that at a previous event the network hosted “they asked him questions that a child could answer.” He joked that he wished he could watch Biden’s appearance Thursday night because “I wanna see if he can made it through the program.”
As the pace of the campaign speeds up in its final weeks, the two candidates were first taking care of other electoral necessities
Thursday: Trump appeared at his midday rally in battleground North Carolina, and Biden raised campaign cash at his virtual event.
During his rally, Trump went hard after Biden, repeating his campaign message that “Joe Biden is a corrupt politician.”
Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has come under scrutiny this week following a New York Post report outlining an email Hunter allegedly received from a Ukrainian businessman discussing a meeting with the elder Biden. Biden’s campaign has said the meeting never happened, and experts have raised questions about the veracity of the email.
Other events are still interrupting the candidates’ final-days plans.
Biden’s campaign announced Thursday morning that running mate Kamala Harris’ communications director and a flight crew member tested positive after a campaign trip to Arizona last week, during which Harris and Biden campaigned together throughout the state. Biden and Harris both have tested negative multiple times since then, including Biden Thursday morning, and the campaign said Harris was never in close contact with the staffers. And in an effort to draw a contrast with Trump, the campaign has emphasized its strict protocols in dealing with the virus and said it’d be moving Harris’ campaign events online whenever possible in the next few days.
Meanwhile Trump, after recovering from his own bout with the coronavirus, has been trying to shore up support from constituencies that not so long ago he thought he had in the bag: big business and voters in the red state of Iowa.
In a Wednesday morning address to business leaders, he expressed puzzlement that they would even consider supporting Biden, arguing that his own leadership was a better bet for a strong economy. Later, the president held his third campaign rally in three nights, this time in Iowa, a state he won handily in 2016 but where Biden is making a late push.