Donald Trump Backs Out of Second Presidential Debate
Two days ago, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that they were cancelling the second debate, originally scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday, October 15th.
After news of Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis broke just nine days ago, the commission had announced that they were transitioning to a virtual event, presumably to protect the moderators, participants, and staff safe from the infectious Trump campaign.
But that just wouldn’t do for Donald Trump (who was hospitalized with COVID just a week ago). He refused to participate in a virtual debate, calling the proposal “ridiculous”. According to Trump’s rent-a-doc physician Sean CONley, Trump is no longer contagious. Even though he had the virus just a few days ago, it seems to have just disappeared. Like a miracle. The standard time for quarantine has been fourteen days all along, but somehow, Trump is a-okay in less than 10? Interesting.
No, no. Don’t be fooled by the blurred line between medicine and politics. Trump is still contagious, and he should not be returning to public events for several more days. I’m positive he pressured Conley into telling the press that he would be fine to return to business as usual. His campaign had to know the Commission wouldn’t allow an in-person debate so soon after his diagnosis, and having Conley give the all clear was a tactic to give Trump some wiggle room to at least pretend he wanted to debate in person; Trump never would’ve agreed to a virtual debate because it highlights his failure to contain the pandemic. Best case scenario for Trump, they cancel the debate altogether, or refuse to move to an in-person debate, giving Trump latitude to back out. Worst case for Trump, they allow the debate to happen in-person, and he has the opportunity to infect Joe Biden with Trumplague.
Donald Trump may have walked away from the first debate thinking he won, but he was the only one. Even others in his campaign came away realizing how much more sane, reasonable, and likable Biden was than Trump. They know he’s weak, and they don’t want to showcase his weakness on the national stage again, if they can prevent it. The possibility of Trump refusing to debate has been lingering for months, and now it’s coming to fruition. Add that to the list of our destroyed democratic norms.
As of right now, the next debate is scheduled for October 22nd. We’ll see what excuse the Trump campaign comes up with for that one.