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Presidential candidate Biden: Townhall event instead of duel with Trump
Photo: BRENDAN MCDERMID / REUTERS
US presidential candidate Joe Biden will appear alone on ABC News instead of the planned TV duel with incumbent Donald Trump on October 15.
The event will be chaired by the moderator George Stephanopoulos, reports the AP news agency.
The teams from Biden and Trump had not previously been able to agree on a new date.
The event originally planned as the second of a total of three TV duels between Trump and Biden next Thursday (local time) had become obsolete due to Trump's disease of Covid-19.
Since Trump's discharge from the Walter Reed Military Hospital, where the US President was treated for three days, his team has refused to provide information about his health and also about when the President was last tested negative for the virus.
The commission responsible for the election campaign debates had therefore proposed that the TV duel be held virtually instead of in Miami.
Trump announces boycott of virtual debate
Trump refused, however.
"I don't waste my time with a virtual debate," Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
"You sit behind a computer and have a debate - that's ridiculous. And then they turn you off whenever they want," said the president.
Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien had already stated that instead of the TV duel, Trump was now planning an event in front of supporters.
The format proposed by the commission was just a "sad excuse" to help Biden, he claimed.
73 million US viewers in the first TV duel
"The safety of all concerned can simply be ensured without having to cancel an opportunity where voters can see the candidates in a duel."
Trump could have tested negative for the corona virus several times before the debate, Stepien said.
The TV duels for the presidential elections in the USA have considerable weight.
Almost 73 million people watched the first duel between Biden and Trump.
Also in the duel between the runners-up Kamala Harris and Mike Pence on Wednesday there were still almost 58 million US viewers.
Biden and Harris perform together - Pence cancels appointments
Biden is currently campaigning with his runner-up, Kamala Harris, in the state of Arizona - the first time since Harris' nomination that they have performed together.
Trump's deputy Pence, on the other hand, canceled planned election campaign events for Friday (local time).
Instead, he is returning to Washington, wrote AP journalist Jonathan Lemire on Twitter.
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