Donald Trump, Joe Biden prepare to debate at time of mounting crises
Posted September 29, 2020 6:52 am.
Last Updated September 29, 2020 6:53 am.
CLEVELAND – The opening debate of the U.S. presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is expected to be a political showdown like no other.
The first face off between candidates during a presidential campaign is widely considered to be very important because it usually attracts the biggest single audience.
Other factors, however, are likely to further fuel viewer interest this time around. Reports that Trump avoided paying taxes in 10 of the last 15 years before being elected, and the growing human and economic toll the COVID-19 pandemic is having in the U.S. are just some of the key items on voters’ minds.
The Tuesday night debate will offer a massive platform for Trump and Biden to outline their starkly different visions for a country facing multiple crises, including racial justice protests and a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and cost millions of jobs.
Biden has spent weeks preparing for Tuesday night through mock debates. Donald Trump has done little in the way of formal preparations.
The 90-minute debate is being held on a university campus in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to racial and social justice issues, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, debate topics include the economy, the Supreme Court appointment, and guarding against election interference.
Biden will step onto the Cleveland stage holding leads in the polls — significant in the national surveys, closer in the battleground states — but facing questions about his turn in the spotlight, particularly considering Trump’s withering attacks. And Trump, with only 35 days to change the course of the race, will have arguably his best chance to try to reframe the campaign as a choice election and not a referendum over his handling of a virus that has killed more people in America than any other nation.
Trump had told advisers that he is preparing an all-out assault on Biden, claiming that the former senator’s 47 years in Washington have left him out of touch and that his family, namely his son Hunter, has benefited from corruption. The president on Monday also repeated his demand that Biden take some sort of drug test, asserting without evidence that the Democratic nominee was somehow using a performance enhancer.
