10/08/2020 1:39 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 10/08/2020 1:54 PM
The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he will not participate in the next debate after the refusal of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to do so, and asked to celebrate it a week later with questions from voters.
Biden's reaction implies that the second presidential debate, which
was scheduled for next October 15 in Miami
, is in all probability suspended, given the refusal of both candidates to participate.
Trump announced this Wednesday that he would not attend the debate if it was held in virtual format, shortly after the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) affirmed that it had decided to choose that route due to the recent diagnosis of COVID-19 by the US president.
The communication director of the Biden campaign,
Kate Bedingfield
, assured that the Democratic candidate was "prepared to accept the proposal" to hold a virtual debate, but
has changed his plan after Trump's refusal.
"As a result, Joe Biden will find an appropriate place to respond directly to voter questions on October 15," Bedingfield said.
That means the two candidates will have separate events on the night the debate was scheduled, as the Trump campaign
has announced that the president will hold a rally that day.
The Miami debate was not going to be a classic face-to-face between the two, but it was expected that undecided voters - and not a moderator - would ask the two candidates the questions.
Bedingfield argued that if Trump has refused to participate in a virtual format of that debate it is because "
he does not want to answer questions from voters about his failures in relation to COVID and the economy."
Biden and Trump, during the first debate on September 29.
Photo: Reuter.
"We hope that the Committee on Debates will move the meeting with voters of Trump and Biden to October 22, so that the president cannot avoid that accountability. Voters should have the opportunity to ask questions directly of the two candidates," he said Bedingfield, stressing that all presidential candidates since 1992 have submitted to that format.
October 22 is when the third and last debate between Trump and Biden was scheduled, in Nashville (Tennessee).
It is unclear if Biden's campaign petition would simply imply that the format of the third debate is changed to include questions from voters, or if the meeting in Nashville would be canceled or postponed for candidates to participate that night in a face-to-face at Miami
Trump insisted this Thursday, a week after testing positive for COVID-19, that it is no longer "contagious", even though that has not been proven, and accused the CPD of trying to "protect" Biden with its decision to turn the debate virtual.
The president was released Monday from the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, outside Washington, and returned to the White House, where numerous officials have tested positive for COVID-19.
With information from EFE.
JPE