Joe Biden (76) against Donald Trump (73).
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SIPANY / SIPA - JAE HONG / SIPA
From our correspondent in Los Angeles,
On the Nashville stage, they're not going to sing
Love me tender
.
Three weeks after their wrestling match, Donald Trump and Joe Biden meet for a second and final duel on Thursday evening - their interim debate was canceled last week because the US president, recovering from the coronavirus, refused to make it virtual.
The candidates will cross swords for 90 minutes, from 9 p.m. (3 hours overnight from Thursday to Friday, Paris time).
12 days before the November 3 ballot, this oratorical joust will be the last opportunity for the candidates to influence the undecided, while Donald Trump is on average 8 points behind his opponent.
Here are the main issues.
Who is ready to pull the United States out of the pandemic?
During the first debate, Donald Trump was not really in trouble about the coronavirus.
Joe Biden repeated his classic attacks on masks and the beginning of the crisis but without really managing to explain what he would do differently for the future, except "follow the advice of scientists".
Fast forward to this Thursday: the pandemic is soaring in Europe, and the United States is not far behind, with more than 1,000 dead on Wednesday.
Donald Trump, who has been infected, as well as about 30 Republicans, continues to hold campaign meetings in front of thousands of supporters for whom the mask is often optional.
And for voters, the coronavirus is the most important poll question, along with the health of the economy.
Partially cut microphones for a more civil debate?
After the cacophony of the first debate, the committee raged: the candidates will not be able to cut themselves off… At certain times.
The 90 minutes are organized into six 15-minute sections, each with two minutes left for each candidate to respond uninterruptedly to the question.
And during this period, only the microphone of the speaker will be open.
It is therefore not a real “mute” button, which would have given the moderator an overly partisan aspect, but this should make it possible to make the exchanges a little less inaudible.
How far will Donald Trump go on Hunter Biden?
2016 had had the Hillary Clinton campaign emails hacked, spun by Wikileaks in the home stretch.
This year, it was the
New York Post
(owned by Fox News boss Rupert Murdoch) that made the controversial decision to publish emails last week that allegedly belonged to Joe Biden's son, whose authenticity does not has not been confirmed.
And whose provenance is suspicious, with a computer that was allegedly left at a repair shop by Hunter Biden.
Donald Trump relentlessly attacks and denounces alleged financial embezzlement by the Biden in Ukraine and China, but the New York Times revealed on Wednesday that the US president has a secret bank account in China.
The Democratic candidate assures us that it is a “campaign of disinformation” which could have been orchestrated by Russia.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he handed the computer to the police because he said it contained child pornography.
Will Donald Trump denounce white supremacists and commit to accepting the results?
At the end of September, his refusal to denounce with conviction the white supremacists who support him had been condemned from all sides.
Just like his stubbornness in not committing to accept the results of the election and to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power in the event of defeat.
Since then, Donald Trump has softened the line, especially during an interview on NBC but he should not escape this question.
For the American president, the hour is turning to convince the last undecided: more than 43 million people have already voted since mid-October via the early vote.
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