Trump, Biden facing off in final presidential debate
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden were expected to face off on Thursday night local time for the final round of presidential debates ahead of the Nov 3 elections.
The final debate will start at 9 pm Eastern Time ( 9 am Beijing time on Friday) in Nashville in the southern US state of Tennessee.
It will cover six topics — fighting the coronavirus pandemic, families in the United States, race relations, climate change, national security and leadership. NBC journalist Kristen Welker will be the moderator.
The US Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday announced a new rule to mute the microphones of Trump and Biden to give each of them two uninterrupted minutes at the beginning of every segment in the debate.
“Both campaigns this week again reaffirmed their agreement to the two minute, uninterrupted rule,” the commission said in a statement.
The first presidential debate, held on Sept 29, descended into chaos after heated exchanges and personal attacks bulldozed the 90- minute- plus debate between the two candidates.
Former US president Barack Obama on Wednesday hit the campaign trail for his former vicepresident Biden, saying that the country “can’t afford” another four years of Trump in the White House and blasted Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
“The pandemic would have been tough for any president. We haven’t seen something like this for 100 years. ... But the degree of incompetence and misinformation, the number of people who might not have died had we just done the basics,” Obama said at a roundtable with black community organizers in Philadelphia in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
“America is a good and decent place, but we’ve just seen so much nonsense and noise that sometimes it’s hard to remember,” Obama said, after spending much of his 35- minute speech upbraiding Trump as “incapable of taking the job seriously” and interested only in himself.
Pivotal swing state
Obama warned that Democrats must vote in record numbers to make sure that Biden wins a decisive victory. “We’ve got to turn out like never before. ... We cannot leave any doubt in this election. We cannot have any doubt.”
Pennsylvania is seen as a pivotal swing state that could prove decisive in determining the election’s outcome. According to the RealClearPolitics website, Biden has a 7.5percentage point lead over Trump in an average of national polls.
Trump and Biden were originally scheduled to face off on Oct 15 in Miami at the now- canceled second presidential debate.
The commission decided to stage the event virtually after Trump was announced on Oct 1 to have tested positive for COVID- 19, but Trump rejected the arrangement. That debate was canceled as a result.