Six Takeaways From Thursday?s Dueling Trump and Biden Town Halls

Mr. Trump then scheduled his own on NBC — at the exact same time.“I figured, what the hell, we’ve got a free hour of television,” the president said at a rally in North Carolina earlier on Thursday.It’s an open question whether Mr. Trump’s gambit of trying to push Mr. Biden off the stage worked to his advantage. “I denounce white supremacy, OK?” he said to the moderator, Savannah Guthrie, almost before she had finished her question.The rare forcefulness on the topic made Mr. Trump’s mealy-mouthed refusal, minutes later, to disavow the false QAnon conspiracy theory all the more stark.“I just don’t know about QAnon,” Mr. Trump claimed, despite having amplified a discredited claim by the theory’s proponents just days ago.Ms. Guthrie swiftly walked through how the far-right movement falsely claims Democrats are a satanic cult that practices pedophilia. Mr. Trump has theatrically removed his mask at his campaign rallies; Mr. Biden disclosed that before walking onstage, he had been wearing two masks, a preventive measure that some doctors say is effective.Mr. Biden said that he himself would take a vaccine by the end of the year, and would urge other Americans to do so, “if the body of scientists say that this is what is ready to be done and it’s been tested.”He also said he might support making vaccines mandatory — but acknowledged that such a measure would be difficult to enforce. “We’re a winner,” Mr. Trump declared, talking about “excess mortality.” He added, “What we’ve done has been amazing, and we have done an amazing job.”Mr. Biden did make one bit of news: After energetically avoiding the question recently, he signaled that he would announce before Election Day whether he supports expanding the number of seats on the Supreme Court. But when a voter asked about how he might try to influence a second Trump administration if he lost, Mr. Biden said he would probably go back to teaching, “focusing on the same issues relating to what constitutes decency and honor in this country.” He added, “It’s just a thing that got me involved in public life to begin with.”Mr. Stephanopoulos leaned in with a question: What will it say about the country if Mr. Trump is re-elected?“Well, it could say I’m a lousy candidate and I didn’t do a good job,” Mr. Biden said.