The third and final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be conducted on October 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The debate will be moderated by NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker.The first presidential debate was conducted on September 29 after which President Trump was criticised for interrupting Biden several times. The second debate was supposed to be held on October 15 but was called off as Trump refused to take part in the same. As Trump tested positive for coronavirus, the Commission on Presidential Debates had decided that the second debate would be conducted virtually but the Trump campaign refused to participate in the debate and Trump called the idea of a virtual debate “a waste of time”.
The Commission on Presidential Debates has also come up with new rules for the third and final debate. The 90-minute debate will be divided into 15-minute segments. At the start of each new topic, each candidate will have two minutes of uninterrupted time during which the opponent’s microphone will be off. The rest of the time will be for open discussion for remarks by both the candidates on each other’s statements during which the microphones of both the candidates will not be muted. As has been done before, the moderator will ensure that roughly equal amounts of time are given to both the speakers over the course of 90 minutes.The debate is crucial for both Trump and Biden as even though Biden has a significant lead in the national polls, the gap between him and Trump is reducing in the battleground states. As the coronavirus pandemic has changed the campaigning style for the candidates, debates have become even more significant than ever. Both the campaigns have agreed to the two-minute uninterrupted rule for the debate.