Final Trump vs Biden Debate: Rule Changes, Hunter's Emails & Last Battle for Seven Key Swing States
On 22 October, US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will meet for their second and final debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, with Kristen Welker of NBC moderating. American academics have discussed whether the faceoff could be a game changer.
On Monday, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced rule changes referring to what appeared to many to be a messy first presidential debate which saw the participants continually interrupt each other. According to new rules, each nominee will be muted by the moderator while the other delivers their two-minute remarks at the beginning of each of the debate topics. Last Friday, Welker unveiled six themes: "fighting COVID-19"; "American families"; "race in America"; "climate change"; "national security"; and "leadership".
In response to the Commission's announcement, the Trump campaign expressed disappointment over the abrupt change of rules, as well as the absence of foreign policy from the list. Although the issues outlined by Welker are thought be most to be worthy of discussion, "almost all of them were discussed at length during the first debate won by President Trump over moderator Chris Wallace and candidate Joe Biden", according to a letter from the Trump campaign. Trump supporters suggested a purported political bias by the moderator, who is claimed to have come from an "established Democratic family" which has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, according to The New York Post.
Trump's Three Winning Cards
Regardless of the last minute rule changes, the Trump campaign agreed to participate in the Thursday debate, with just two weeks remaining before the 3 November Election Day.
"The rule change for the next debate could actually prove to serve the president well", believes Anthony Angelini, a GOP political consultant. "When the war of ideas is really delved into, the president usually wins […] The more Biden is allowed to speak uninterrupted, the more he will dig himself into a hole. Let Biden talk. He will just embarrass himself".
The political consultant suggested that foreign policy would have been an easy win for Trump: "He is the first president in a generation to not start a new war", Angelini highlighted. "He has signed historic deals with Israel and the Arab World. His priorities are by far in the right place as far as unilateral policy goes".
Another suggested win for Trump, according to the pundit, is the economy. Angelini does not believe that "anyone actually blames [Trump] for the virus and the deaths". As the COVID pandemic continues, Americans will be looking for someone to rebuild the economy, and Trump appears to be the man for the job, Angelini believes.
"Trump is the president who inherited a bad economy and fixed it by tax cuts and deregulation", the political consultant claimed. "Biden is the vice president whose administration inherited a bad economy and prolonged it by 8 years".
Trump, according to the pundit, is likely to touch upon the Hunter Biden laptop allegations, according to Angelini. A scandal erupted last week after The New York Post released what it claimed to be "smoking gun emails" from Hunter Biden's laptop which are alleged to indicate a pay-to-play scheme involving the ex-vice president, Joe Biden, his family members and unnamed foreign individuals.
NEW: Law enforcement source tells @CBSNews FBI + DOJ concur with @dni_ratcliffe laptop + emails, said to belong to Hunter Biden, were not part of Russian disinformation campaign + FBI has laptop. Separate reporting suggests could be part of foreign influence op @ClareHymes22
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) October 21, 2020
The 14 October bombshell allegations which were immediately banned by Twitter and prevented from broad circulation by Facebook as fake news, was followed by a Breitbart release of emails purported to belong to Hunter Biden's former business associate, Bevan Cooney, who is currently serving a sentence for fraud. On 20 October, Trump lawyer Mayor Rudy Giuliani announced that he had handed Hunter Biden's laptop over to the Delaware police, citing allegations of sexually explicit materials involving underage girls on the device.
https://sputniknews.com/us/202010221080841160-final-trump-vs-biden-debate-rule-changes-hunters-emails–last-battle-for-seven-key-swing-states/