[Software] Rule Change for Last Debate Seeks to Limit Interruptions

[Angel of Death]

President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be muted during portions of Thursday’s final presidential debate, an effort by the organizers to avoid the unruly spectacle that played out at the candidates’ first meeting in Cleveland last month.As in the first debate, each candidate will be allotted two minutes of speaking time to initially answer the moderator’s questions. But under a plan announced on Monday by the Commission on Presidential Debates, his opponent’s microphone will be turned off during that period, an attempt to ensure an uninterrupted response.After the candidates finish their two-minute replies, they will be allowed to freely engage with one another for the remainder of the segment. (The debate, to be moderated by Kristen Welker of NBC News, is divided into six segments of 15 minutes apiece.)Aides to Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were notified of the change late Monday. Mr. Trump signaled late Monday that he was not happy about it.Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after a day of campaigning in Arizona, Mr. Trump raised objections to the commission’s plans but confirmed that he would take part in the debate.“I’ll participate, I just think it is very unfair,” Mr. Trump said. “I will participate, but it’s very unfair that they changed the topics and it is very unfair that again we have an anchor who is totally biased.”The commission acknowledged earlier on Monday that both campaigns might be dissatisfied with the new rules. “One may think they go too far, and one may think they do not go far enough,” the commission said in a statement. “We are comfortable that these actions strike the right balance and that they are in the interest of the American people, for whom these debates are held.”The Thursday debate in Nashville will mark the final meeting of the campaign between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden. The debate commission had pledged to curtail the chaos that ensued at last month’s first debate in Cleveland, when Mr. Trump frequently interrupted Mr. Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News.Mr. Trump and his aides have signaled deep hostility to any outside control of the candidates’ microphones, and the campaign spent Monday waging a daylong assault on the commission and on Mr. Biden. In a letter sent to the commission before the announcement of the new rules, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said it would be “completely unacceptable” for “an unnamed person” to shut off a candidate’s microphone.“A decision to proceed with that change amounts to turning further editorial control of the debate over to the commission,” Mr. Stepien wrote, going on to baselessly accuse the nonpartisan commission of bias toward Mr. Biden.The commission’s proposal could also create the potential for technical gaffes. Mr. Trump’s voice, for instance, may be picked up by Mr. Biden’s microphone, and vice versa, meaning that an attempted interruption still may be heard, at least faintly, by viewers watching at home.After the Cleveland debate, the commission released a statement saying that “additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.” But the organizers were slow to agree on any new rules, particularly after a tumultuous week in which an attempt to convert the second debate in Miami into a virtual event prompted Mr. Trump to withdraw. The second debate was eventually canceled, and each candidate held a televised town hall with voters instead.In the letter, Mr. Stepien — who mockingly referred to the nonpartisan commission as the “Biden Debate Commission” in a tweet — claimed the commission had “promised” that the Nashville debate would be about foreign policy and asked for it to discard the six subjects announced last week by the moderator, Ms. Welker. They are “fighting Covid-19,” “American families,” “race in America,” climate change, national security and leadership.It is true that in some campaign years, the third presidential debate has focused on foreign policy. But the debate organizers did not announce such a plan in 2020, saying that the third debate would mirror the format of the first, with six subjects selected by the moderator.A Biden spokesman, T. J. Ducklo, said earlier on Monday that Mr. Stepien sent the letter “because Donald Trump is afraid to face more questions about his disastrous Covid response.”“The campaigns and the commission agreed months ago that the debate moderator would choose the topics,” Mr. Ducklo said in a statement.