Tag: 2020 presidential debate

Trump campaign says president plans to participate in next debate in person despite uncertainty

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President Trump plans to participate in next week’s debate in person, his campaign said Tuesday, despite uncertainty around how he will recover from COVID-19.

“The President intends to participate in the debate in person,” the campaign’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh, said in a statement to The Hill.

But it’s unclear if the president will be healthy enough to attend the debate, or whether he would be exposing other attendees to a contagious virus that has killed roughly 210,000 people in the U.S. to date. Continue reading.

Trump’s debate guests refused to wear masks, flouting rules

A little more than two days before she reported testing positive for the coronavirus, first lady Melania Trump — as well as the president’s sons, daughters and several guests — violated safety protocols at the first presidential debate by taking off their masks after being seated in a live studio audience in Cleveland.

Several in the president’s entourage continued without masks after an official from the Cleveland Clinic, which co-hosted the debate, offered them masks in case they didn’t have any, according to debate moderator Chris Wallace. “They waved them away,” Wallace said on Fox News on Friday morning.

It was a violation of rules that both campaigns agreed to, Frank Fahrenkopf, head of the Commission on Presidential Debates, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Continue reading.