US President Donald Trump has confirmed his participation in the presidential debate with his Democratic challenger Joe Biden later this week, even as he raised objections about “unfair” changes in the format.
Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, are slated to face their final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee on October 22.
The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday announced new rules under which it will mute microphones for two minutes of the rival speakers so as to give them uninterrupted opening remarks.
“I’ll participate, I just think it is very unfair,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.
“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 president said, responding to a question on changes in the debate rules by CPD.
In a letter to CPD on Monday, Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien expressed concern over the announced topics for what was always billed as the ‘Foreign Policy Debate’ in the series of events agreed to by both the Trump and the Biden campaigns many months ago.
“The topics announced by moderator Kristen Welker (fighting COVID-19, American families, race in America, climate change, national security, and leadership) are serious and worthy of discussion, but only a few of them even touch on foreign policy,” he said, asserting that almost all of the topics were discussed at length during the first debate “won” by Trump.