« We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead. »
So much for that idea. The Commission on Presidential Debates chose the option I predicted yesterday for the next bout between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in light of Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. Early this morning, CPD announced that the town-hall forum scheduled for next week would be “virtual,” with Trump and Biden in their own locations and the town-hall participants and moderator in Miami as planned. Sounds good? Er… The second debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will take place virtually amid the fallout from the president’s diagnosis of COVID-19, the debate commission announced Thursday. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates cited a need “to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate.” The candidates will “participate from separate remote locations” while the participants and moderator remain in Miami, it said. The announcement comes a week before Biden and Trump were scheduled to face off in Miami. Sounds fair, right? Joe Biden thinks so: “Vice President Biden looks forward to speaking directly to the American people and comparing his plan for bringing the country together and building back better with Donald Trump’s failed leadership on the coronavirus that has thrown the strong economy he inherited into the worst downturn since the Great Depression.” Donald Trump… not so much. Claiming the CPD change was “a sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden,” Team Trump announced that the president would instead hold a rally that night: Trump’s campaign says the president will hold a rally instead of participating in next week’s debate.
