With Donald Trump refusing to participate in a virtual debate, organizers said the CPD (Commission on Presidential Debates) decided to cancel the second debate, slated to take place between him and the former vice president Joe Biden. Bent on having an in-person debate despite concerns surrounding his COVID-19 diagnosis, the leaders are now trying for their own town halls.
Townhall events with Biden on ABC and Trump on NBC may be on the air this Thursday. This news comes after the CPD called off the second presidential debate last week, after a 48-hour discussion between the two campaigns. It is worth noting, however, that Trump's plan is likely to change.
Sources familiar with the planning said that the Trump campaign is in talks with NBC regarding a town hall, with Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie being the possible moderator. The source said the event is likely to come to fruition only if the president tests negative for the coronavirus.
According to the sources, the town hall is expected to be an outdoor setting in Miami, similar to NBC's recently hosted event with Biden. Currently tight-lipped about the event, NBC is a network where the president used to work, but with a news division, he regularly criticizes, calling its parent company Comcast as "Concast." Biden, however, is ready with a more concrete plan.
The Democratic presidential nominee is slated to take part in a town hall on ABC, with George Stephanopoulos, moderating. The event will be aired on Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern, CNN reported. Biden campaign and ABC announced the event on Oct. 8, the same day that the CPD shited the debate to a virtual format, citing Trump's coronavirus illness.
Trump immediately turned down the offer to participate in the virtual event, while his campaign blasted the commission for changing the format without discussion. The Biden camp contacted ABC, which produced a town hall event with Trump in Sept. and had been waiting with bated breath to do the same with the former veep.
In an interview with CNN's State of the Union, Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield explained that the campaign scheduled a national network town hall so that Biden could take questions from voters after Trump refused to appear in a virtual town hall. Lagging in the polls, the Trump campaign managed to get the debate back in-person, proposing to push the debate back to Oct. 22 and 29.