«Don’t save him.»
Team Trump grumbled about this last night, but it might — might — work in his favor on Thursday night. The Commission on Presidential Debates announced new rules last night to, er, improve the product from the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden two weeks ago. Candidates’ microphones will only be live during their own answer period and in open discussion in the second and final debate. The hope is to prevent the meltdown of interruptions from both candidates, but from which Trump came off worse overall: When the two face off on Thursday for a final televised debate, each candidate will have their microphones cut off while the other is delivering responses to questions on American families, race in America, climate change, national security and leadership. The 90-minute debate is divided into 15-minute segments on the six topics, with each candidate granted two minutes to deliver uninterrupted remarks before proceeding to an open debate for nine minutes of each segment. The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday announced that “in order to enforce this agreed upon rule, the only candidate whose microphone will be open during these two-minute periods is the candidate who has the floor under the rules”. Both mics will be unmuted for open discussion. The commission added in a statement: “We realize, after discussions with both campaigns, that neither campaign may be totally satisfied with the measures announced today.
