After Trump family went maskless at debate, Arsht Center demanded mask enforcement

A week before Miami’s Arsht Center was set to host the country’s second presidential debate during the coronavirus pandemic with two candidates in their 70s, circumstances turned even more unsettling.

President Donald Trump contracted COVID-19, and, a week earlier, his family had refused to wear masks while sitting in the front row at the first debate in Cleveland.

While the Democratic nominee’s wife, Jill Biden, wore a mask on stage to greet her husband after the event, first lady Melania Trump did not. She also later tested positive for COVID-19.

That was the background for a stern early-morning email on Oct. 7 to the top debate organizer from Arsht

CEO Johann Zietsman.

“As we all witnessed during the first debate, many of those present in the room did not wear masks,” Zietsman wrote Janet Brown, the director of the Commission on Presidential Debates.

“We need a 100% guarantee that masks will be worn by everybody, and only be removed by persons on camera during recording,” he wrote. “Any transgression of this will force us to take steps to protect our staff — which we have agreed is priority # 1, 2 and 3. I want to avoid this, and need to know how this will be enforced.”

Zietsman’s inbox does not show a response from Brown beyond: “On it, Johann. Thanks to you all.”

But within a day, mask concerns would be neutralized when Brown announced a drastic change to the

Miami format for Oct. 15. Candidates wouldn’t debate inside the county-owned facility but would appear remotely by video.

The change doomed what would have been Miami’s first presidential debate since John Kerry faced George W. Bush at the University of Miami in 2004.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden agreed to the virtual format, but Trump blasted it as a boon to his rival and said he would skip the event. Biden quickly lined up a town hall on ABC in Philadelphia for Thursday night. Trump plans to have his own forum on NBC at the same time, just blocks away from the Arsht at Miami’s Perez Art Museum.

The Zietsman emails, obtained through a publicrecords request, do not reveal what role Arsht’s objections played in the commission’s format change.