Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Trump both participated in town halls on a night when they had been scheduled to debate. Biden was in Philadelphia for a town hall hosted by ABC News, while President Trump’s Miami town hall was held by NBC News. (WaPo)
NBC News has been receiving widespread criticism over the past couple of days for scheduling its town hall directly against ABC News’ event. Savannah Guthrie‘s dogged questioning and fact-checking of the president at the event seems to have earned back some good press for the network. (TVNewser)
Guthrie opened the town hall with an intense interrogation on Trump’s medical status, his coronavirus leadership, and everything in between. Guthrie pressed him for a specific answer to whether he was tested the day of his first debate with Biden, and after Trump said he “probably” tested before the debate, she tried asking him, “do you take a test every single day?” (Mediaite)
On ABC News, Biden said that while he is “not a fan” of so-called “court packing” or otherwise overhauling the federal judicial system, the calculus changes if Republicans successfully push through Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination before the election. (Politico)
Biden also called the 1994 crime bill a “mistake,” said he’d appeal to governors and mayors to enact mask mandates and tried to distance himself from the far left on the environment by reasserting a pledge not to ban fracking or embrace the Green New Deal. (USA Today)