President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden will each participate in a town hall Thursday night, but on different networks.
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NBC News agreed to put President Donald Trump before voters in a town hall event on Thursday after the president submitted to an independent coronavirus test with the results reviewed by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The announcement Wednesday sets up dueling town halls with Democratic opponent Joe Biden on a night the two candidates were supposed to meet for their second debate. Biden is appearing on a similar town hall event in Philadelphia, televised by ABC.
It also subjected NBC News to a sharp backlash on social media, where a call to boycott the network was a trending topic on Twitter.
A formal matchup between the Republican president and Biden that was scheduled for Thursday in Miami by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debate was canceled. In light of the president’s infection, the commission shifted the format to a virtual meeting, and Trump declined to participate.
Both town halls will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern, but Biden will have the last word. The ABC event, moderated by George Stephanopoulos, will last 90 minutes with an additional half hour of analysis. Trump’s town hall on NBC is scheduled for an hour.
Critics of NBC questioned why the network scheduled Trump for the same time, making viewers have to choose if they were interested in seeing both candidates react live in a similar format.
In addition to preventing viewers from getting a side-by-side comparison of the two men, the dueling events will likely be seen by far fewer people.
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In other election news:
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New polling was released today in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio:
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