LAS VEGAS — The presidential race has been moving away from Donald Trump since last week’s debate: he is trailing in crucial battleground state polls; the speaker of the House of his own party essentially conceded the race to Hillary Clinton; and a steady stream of women have accused the former New York businessman of inappropriate sexual behavior (all of which he denies).
Can Donald Trump turn this thing around?
Wednesday’s debate here in Las Vegas at the University of Nevada might be Trump’s last chance before a massive television audience to come across as presidential, portray himself as a political outsider whose message meets the moment, use the WikiLeaks emails to inflict damage into Hillary Clinton’s campaign and convince people he still has a shot at winning.
The third and final presidential debate is being moderated by anchor Chris Wallace — the first time a journalist from Fox News has moderated a general election debate.
Wallace says the planned topics for the debate are debt and entitlements, immigration, economy, Supreme Court, foreign hot spots and fitness to be president.
But two political issues that are likely to come up: the recent accusations of lewd behavior against Trump and the WikiLeaks release of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email account. And another issue sure to be mentioned: in recent days, Trump has emphasized his argument that the election is “rigged” against him.
Heading into the debate, no sign yet if Trump’s team has any tricks up their sleeves this time.
Trump reportedly battled with the Commission in the minutes before the last debate in St. Louis, attempting to seat women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual abuse — including Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey — in the box reserved for family of the candidate.
According to The Washington Post, Frank J. Fahrenkopf, the debate commission’s co-chairman, told the Trump campaign security would remove the women. So the campaign ended up seating them in other seats inside the debate hall to draw attention to the past accusations made against Clinton.
The Daily Caller has a team of journalists on the ground in Las Vegas. The debate — which begins at 9:00 p.m. EST and will run for 90 minutes without commercial interruptions — will be live streamed on TheDC.