US Election 2020: Trump And Biden Feud over Debate Topics

US President Donald Trump and his White House challenger Joe Biden are arguing over preparations for their final TV debate, BBC reports.

The Republican President's campaign accused the organisers of this week's showdown of helping the Democrat out of foreign policy.

The Biden camp announced that Mr. Trump was seeking to avoid questions about his answer to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Biden is the national leader in opinion polls with two weeks to go before the election.

But it has a smaller lead in a handful of crucial US states that will eventually determine the outcome.

What did the Trump campaign say?

On Monday, the President's Camp sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates asking for subjects to be changed for the final prime-time duel this Thursday.

Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said in a letter that the campaign had already agreed that foreign policy would be the focus of the third debate.

The topics were revealed last week by the moderator and NBC News reporter Kristen Welker: American families, America ethnicity, climate change, national security and leadership.

During a campaign rally on Monday afternoon in Prescott, Arizona, Mr Trump described Ms Welker as a "radical Democrat" and said she would be "no good".

Mr Stepien accused Mr Biden of being "desperate to avoid conversations about his own foreign policy record" and the commission of trying to "insulate Biden from his own history".

"The Commission's pro-Biden antics have turned the entire debate season into a fiasco and it is little wonder why the public has lost faith in its objectivity," he wrote.

He also accused Mr Biden of trying to avoid questions over reports about purported emails from his son, Hunter, and alleged conflicts of interest. 

How did the Biden campaign respond?

The Democrat's camp hit back that it was actually Mr Trump who was trying to duck questions.

"The campaigns and the Commission agreed months ago that the debate moderator would choose the topics," said national press secretary TJ Ducklo.

"The Trump campaign is lying about that now because Donald Trump is afraid to face more questions about his disastrous Covid response.

"As usual, the president is more concerned with the rules of a debate than he is getting a nation in crisis the help it needs."

What are the debate rules?  

Following public criticism of the treatment of the first debate, in the final event, the Commission introduced a new rule on mute microphones.

The 90-minute discussion framework will be split into 15-minute segments. At the start of each new subject, both candidates will have two minutes of uninterrupted time, during which the opponent's microphone will be off.

The rest of the time will be open discussion - and the microphones will not be muted during this period.

In a statement announcing the decision, the debate commission said they determined it was "appropriate to adopt measures intended to promote adherence to agree upon rules".

The Commission acknowledged that "one [campaign] may think that they are going too far, and one may think that they are not going far enough," but that these activities offered the right balance in the public interest.

What's happened with the last two debates?

Trump's campaign chief noted on Monday that the moderator of the postponed second debate on 15 October, Steve Scully, had been suspended after tweeting to a prominent Trump critic, then lying that his account had been hacked.

Mr Stepien also accused the moderator of the first debate, Fox News' Chris Wallace, of having acted as "a third combatant" against Mr Trump.

The first Trump-Biden duel back on 29 September descended into insults between the candidates, with the president interrupting many more times than the Democrat did, according to post-debate statistics from US media outlets.

How is early voting going?

Nearly 30 million early voters have already cast their ballots, compared with just six million at this point before the last presidential election in 2016.

Experts say the coronavirus pandemic has spurred many to cast their ballot ahead of time to avoid crowding at polling stations on 3 November, though some early voters have faced long queues.

On Monday, Republicans were defeated by the U.S. Supreme Court when it refused to take up a case on postal ballots in the crucial swing-voting state of Pennsylvania.

Republicans argued that only ballots obtained by election day should be counted, and the Supreme Court's decision to allow late ballots to be counted was challenged.

Now that America's highest court has refused to hear the case, any ballots received within three days of 3 November will be counted, even if they do not have a clear postmark.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's three liberal justices in the case.