We expected controversy from the US election – but we didn’t expect this

It’s still unclear whether the president will turn up to any future debates, writes Holly Baxter

Donald Trump has said he won't debate Biden virtually (Getty)

With just under four weeks to go until election day, the US news cycle is particularly punishing.

Seemingly moments after the Washington DC, New York City and west coast teams sat down in front of our laptops to report on the strangest first presidential debate ever (in both circumstance and content), the president was diagnosed with coronavirus.

Then, just after his helicopter departed from the White House lawn for Walter Reed hospital, his compatriots began announcing their own diagnoses. 

One announcement came in the form of a TikTok video – so very 2020 – from Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of close Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway and her husband, the “never Trumper” George. 

Twitter was briefly ablaze with hot takes: was Claudia – who went on to claim that Trump was much sicker than he was saying he was – the fresh new face of the liberal revolution? Was she an “unruly teen” who should be taken in hand? 

The fact that the election had briefly boiled down to the social media posts of a minor was absurd, but no more absurd than a lot of what had happened this year. 

Clemence Michallon tackled the Claudia Conway issue here, and her nuanced piece is well worth a read.

But then, of course, the news cycle moved on. Kamala Harris and Mike Pence appeared onstage in Utah for their vice presidential debate – once an afterthought that many people skip, now a central event considering the ages and health of the people at the top of the ballots. 

It was a night rich with policy discussion and replete with energy, unlike the Joe Biden/Donald Trump fiasco just one week earlier. Here’s my analysis of the best zingers and the biggest issues that came out of the evening.

The VP debate was a lesson in how differently people can receive a performance. As I compiled op-eds and analysis while the debate unfolded, it became clear that my liberal writers and my conservative writers had been affected by very different moments. 

Noah Berlatsky felt that Pence’s polished performance showed off just how dangerous he was: the fact that he could repeat Trump’s nonsensical claims about Democrats being “socialists” and mail-in ballots being open to abuse while remaining apparently statesmanlike was especially alarming, he said. 

He expanded on those thoughts here in a fascinating article which breaks down why the establishment politician Pence and the renegade businessman Trump are such a terrifyingly effective pair. 

One of my DC-based conservative writers, however, felt that Pence’s moment challenging Harris about packing the Supreme Court would go down in history. He explained why – and why late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would agree – here. 

No sooner had we taken to our beds in the early hours of the morning after the VP debate, of course, when our phones began buzzing with Thursday’s news: Trump had called in to Fox & Friends at 8am and announced that he would be pulling out of the second presidential debate next week. 

As it stands right now, we’re still trying to clarify whether the president really will refuse to debate Biden – and whether it’s really because he doesn’t like the digital format, or because he is perhaps still in bad enough health from Covid-19 that he doubts he can pack a punch over 90 grueling minutes. 

Some have called for Trump to be empty-seated at the debate if he continues down this road, but at the time of writing no further official changes to the structure have been made.

One thing’s for sure: there’s no sign the news cycle is slowing down any time soon.

Yours,

Holly Baxter

US Opinion Editor