The Real Reason Biden Is Postponing His Campaign Events
We're just days away from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's face-off on the debate floor against President Donald Trump, and Biden is expected to lay low and stay off the campaign trail as he prepares for his final contest with the president (via The New York Times) Biden has already told donors during a weekend event that he was prepared for the Trump campaign to throw everything they had at him in the days leading up to November 3. Biden called these "anxious times," and "I appreciate everything you're doing for the campaign. We have 19 days left, and you know, he's going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at me," Biden said (via CNBC).
Biden may be sidelined with debate prep, but he'll have a powerful surrogate campaigning on his behalf. Former president Barack Obama will be appearing at an event in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, and it will be the first time Obama will campaign in person for his former vice president. CNBC, which reported on Obama's move to campaign on Biden's behalf, also notes the former president is still one of the most popular figures in American politics.
Unlike Biden, Trump stays on the campaign trail
There are hopes that the October 22 debate will be different from the first Trump-Biden encounter on September 28. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which organizes these encounters, has already decided that it would mute microphones so both sides could have two minutes of interrupted time to speak at the beginning of every 15-minute segment. The commission has further spelled out that: "The only candidate whose microphone will be open during these two-minute periods is the candidate who has the floor under the rules." It says both sides have agreed to the two-minute rule.
The Trump campaign released a statement saying that the president "is committed to debating Joe Biden regardless of last minute rule changes from the biased commission in their latest attempt to provide advantage to their favored candidate. This was supposed to be the foreign policy debate, so the President still looks forward to forcing Biden to answer the number-one relevant question of whether he's been compromised by the Communist Party of China," the remarks added. "Why did Biden allow his son Hunter to sell access to him while he was vice president, and why were there Chinese payment arrangements for Joe himself worked out by Hunter and his sketchy partners? If the media won't ask Joe Biden these questions, the President will, and there will be no escape for Biden" (via Deadline).