National
Presidential debates to be moderated by Chris Wallace, Steve Scully and Kristen Welker
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Wednesday the moderators for the upcoming three debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the single debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. The presidential debates will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, Steve Scully of C-SPAN Networks and Kristen Welker of NBC News, and the vice presidential debate will be moderated by Susan Page of USA Today. The first debate between Biden and Trump will be moderated by Wallace and is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 29, at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. The Ohio debate will be divided into six segments of about 15 minutes each on major topics to be selected by the moderator and announced at least one week before the debate, according to the commission. Each candidate will have two minutes to respond after the moderator opens each segment with a question. The moderator will then use the rest of the time in the segment to facilitate further discussion on the topic, according to the commission. The vice presidential debate between Harris and Pence will be moderated by Page and will take place Wednesday, October 7 at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City. This debate will be divided into nine segments of about 10 minutes each, and each candidate will have two minutes to respond to the moderator’s opening question, the commission said. The moderator will then use the rest of the time in the segment to facilitate a deeper discussion on the topic, according to the commission. The next debate between Trump and Biden will be moderated by Scully and will take place on Thursday, October 15, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, in Miami. The Miami debate will take the form of a town hall where the questions will be posed by citizens from the South Florida area, according to the commission. The participants will be uncommitted voters selected under the supervision of Dr. Frank Newport of Gallup, the Commission said. The candidates will have two minutes to respond to each question and there will be an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate further discussion, according to the commission. The third and final debate between Biden and Trump will be moderated by Welker and is scheduled to take place on Thursday, October 22, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The format for the third debate will be identical to the format of the first debate. All debates are scheduled to take place from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET without commercial breaks. The moderators alone will select the questions, and they will not be known to the CPD or the candidates, according to the CPD. The moderators will be able to extend the segments and ensure that both candidates have equal speaking time, the commission said. The CPD is a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)3 organization and has sponsored and produced all presidential and vice presidential debates since 1987. The-CNN-Wire
By: NBC Palm Springs
September 2, 2020