Trump to take questions from Florida voters Thursday in televised NBC Miami town hall
President Donald Trump will be in Miami Thursday evening to participate in a televised town hall with Florida voters, NBC announced Wednesday morning.
The one-hour event will be held at 8 p.m. on the east terrace of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, overlooking Biscayne Bay, according to the network. In addition to airing on NBC, the forum will also air across MSNBC and CNBC, and will be streamed in Spanish on Telemundo’s digital platforms.
The town hall is scheduled 10 days after NBC hosted Democratic nominee Joe Biden for a previous town hall at the same location.
Trump and Biden were supposed to debate Thursday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, located just a short walk from the museum. But Trump balked at an announcement by the Commission on Presidential Debates that it would hold the debate virtually due to the president’s Oct. 2 COVID-19 diagnosis. And Biden quickly scheduled a town hall that evening with ABC in Philadelphia also at 8 p.m.
Trump’s Miami town hall will be moderated by Savannah Guthrie, and will follow the same format and guidelines as Biden’s Miami town hall, according to NBC. The network explained in a press release that it has a statement from the clinical director at the National Institutes of Health “indicating that he and [coronavirus task force member] Dr. Anthony Fauci have reviewed the president’s recent medical data ... and have concluded ‘with a high degree of confidence’ that the president is ‘not shedding infectious virus.’”
Both Guthrie and the president will be at least 12 feet apart from both each other and the audience, according to NBC. The audience will also be socially distanced, and will be required to wear face masks, answer a symptoms questionnaire and take a temperature check prior to entering the venue.
Miami Beach Police announced that the president’s visit will force the closure of the MacArthur Causeway Thursday night from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m.
Trump’s campaign intends to blanket South Florida Thursday, with Vice President Mike Pence scheduled to appear twice in Miami-Dade County and the president’s son, Eric Trump, scheduled to appear at a Southwest Ranches megachurch in Broward County.
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 9:25 AM.
