Trump, Biden to face off in first debate: US election live news

September 30, 2020 Evelyn

The coronavirus, the Supreme Court, Trump’s taxes, and economy loom over the first of three presidential debates.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off in Cleveland, Ohio in the first of three debates on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign hopes the first showdown, which starts at 21:00 ET, will give the president a boost amid lagging polls.
Mike Pence and top Senate Republicans are set to meet with Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
Pence will host a debate watch party on Tuesday, while Kamala Harris attends a virtual fundraiser.
Jill Biden continues her tour of northern battleground states, campaigning in Michigan with 35 days until November 3.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the US elections. This is Joseph Stepansky.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, September 28:

10:00 ET – Giuliani says in Fox interview Biden ‘has dementia’, prompting uncomfortable response from hosts

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had an uncomfortable exchange with the hosts of the Fox programme Fox and Friends on Tuesday when he said Biden “has dementia – there’s no doubt about it”.

Giuliani went on to claim he had several doctors review tapes of Biden, prompting what appeared to be an increasingly uncomfortable response from the three hosts. Trump has repeatedly claimed Biden is mentally unfit to be president and baselessly suggested he has taken performance-enhancing drugs to aid his mental acuity.

“None of us are doctors, so this is just pure opinion,” host Steve Doocy eventually responds.

09:30 ET – Ranking House Republican calls for probe into Trump tax source

Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has called for an investigation into the source who provided Trump’s tax returns to the New York Times.

Brady called the disclosure, the subject of a bombshell report published on Sunday, a “felony crime”.

“While many critics question the article’s accuracy, equally troubling is the prospect that a felony crime was committed by releasing the private tax return information of an individual – in this case, the President’s,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “To ensure every American is protected against the illegal release of their tax returns for political reasons, I am calling for an investigation of the source and to prosecute if the law was broken.”

09:00 ET – What to watch for during the first Trump-Biden debate

One candidate who plays by the rules, another who does not. One candidate who has spent weeks preparing, another who has not. One candidate with fresh debate experience, another whose most recent debate took place four years ago.

These are some of the contrasts viewers can watch out for when they tune in to the first of three presidential debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. With a potential audience of close to 100 million viewers on television and online, the candidates will make their pitch to the American people, each attempting to close the deal with voters.

Although the outcome of a live debate can never be predicted, Al Jazeera looks at what we can reasonably expect when the two contenders for the highest office in the land face off.