Today is the final round of US presidential debates ahead of the November 3 elections that will send either Donald Trump back to the Oval office or replace him with Democrat Joe Biden.
The debate at the Belmont University, a private Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee is expected to see its share of fireworks and controversies.
Most discussed among them is the muting of microphones.In the first presidential debate, both Biden and Trump kept interrupting each other and thus the US Commission on Presidential Debates introduced a new rule of muting microphones and giving full, uninterrupted two minutes to each candidate at the beginning of each 15-minute segment.The Trump campaign though has agreed to the last minute changes in pattern, but has been grumbling about the commission handing over advantage to their "favoured candidate"
NBC's Karen Welker, the debate moderator, has already announced her planned lineup last week.The list includes 'Fighting Covid-19', 'American Families', 'Race in America', 'Climate Change', 'National Security', and 'Leadership'. Altogether, the debate will last 90 minutes with the debate being broken down into six 15-minute segments. The Trump campaign wanted foreign policy to be one of the topics to be discussedTrump's campaign manager Bill Stepien even wrote to the US Commission on Presidential Debates urging them to include foreign policy as a debate topic. But, with Welker already declaring her lineup, that didn't happen.The Trump campaign has been going around town claiming that the organisers deliberately left out the subject to "help Biden win".
Ahead of the debate, both sides have resorted different strategies.Former Vice-President Joe Biden sealed himself off along with his campaign members to prepare for the final onslaught on Trump and reel in the votes.He had no public events on his schedule this week and was sending out his running-mate Kamala Harris out on the trail instead.President Trump, on the other hand, stucking to his typical schedule. The Republican attended huge rallies in Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the run up to debate night.
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