Trump, Biden will have mics off for initial responses during final debate
Oct 20, 2020
Washington [US], October 20 : The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Monday (local time) that the final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Former Vice President Joe Biden will have their microphones muted for initial responses to be held on coming Thursday night.
The final presidential debate will be held at Belmont University in Nashville at 9 PM (local time) and will be moderated by NBC News' Kristen Welker.
The Commission said microphones of both candidates will be on during open-discussion segments of the debate, reported CNBC News.
The earlier presidential debate held at Cleveland on September 29 was marred by frequent interruptions from Trump, leading to calls for the debate moderator to have the ability to cut off each candidate's microphone while their opponent spoke.
The Commission said in its statement that both camps had already agreed to each candidate having two minutes of uninterrupted time to make remarks at the beginning of each 15-minute segment of the debate, it was enforcing the rules and not making a complete rule change, reported CNBC News.
Earlier, both parties have agreed upon the subject of the debate, namely foreign policy. Bill Stepien, Trump's campaign manager alleged that the last-minute change in the rules was done to benefit Biden. "It is completely irresponsible for the Commission to alter the focus of this final debate just days before the event, solely Biden from his own history," Stepien wrote in a letter to the debate commission.
Biden campaign too corroborated the fact that they did agree on foreign policy. "The campaigns and the Commission agreed months ago that the debate moderator would choose the topics," said TJ Ducklo, the Biden campaign's national spokesman.
The Trump campaign had denounced the Commission since the first debate, claiming that it was biased.
