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The Latest: Biden says COVID-19 test negative before debate

Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 4 years, 3 months AGO
| October 22, 2020 8:27 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):

11:20 a.m.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he has tested negative for COVID-19 ahead of his debate with President Donald Trump.

Biden made the comments to reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday before flying to Nashville, Tennessee, where he's scheduled to participate in the second debate with the Republican president, the final scheduled meeting of the two candidates before the Nov. 3 election. Biden says he underwent the coronavirus testing on Thursday.

Last week during a town hall-style interview on MSNBC, Trump did not specify when he was asked when he had been tested before the Sept. 29 debate. The White House announced two days later Trump had tested positive. Trump spent three nights at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center before returning to the White House.

The White House was asked Thursday morning whether Trump had been tested, as Biden was, in preparation for the debate. It has not released an update.

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE:

After last month's chaotic debate, Trump and Biden will take the stage Thursday to give it another go.

Read more:

— Face to face: Trump and Biden to meet for final debate

Viewers’ Guide: After chaotic 1st debate, Trump, Biden try again

— US officials link Iran to emails meant to intimidate voters

— GOP’s Romney, long a Trump critic, voted — but not for Trump

— AP-NORC/USAFacts poll: Many in US distrust campaign info

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

8:35 a.m.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won’t rule out studying the addition of members to the U.S. Supreme Court as part of a commission he plans to name to look at court reforms if he’s elected.

During an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” recorded Monday but not yet aired, Biden was asked by anchor Norah O’Donnell if the commission would study whether to pack the court. Biden says the commission’s charge would “go well beyond packing.”

Biden said last week he was “not a fan” of the idea of adding justices to the court to balance it ideologically. He said he would answer the question of whether he planned to support it before the final presidential debate, scheduled for Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee.

Questions of whether Biden would support court-packing have emerged since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18 and the Republican-controlled Senate’s move forward with Judiciary Committee hearings on President Donald Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, before the Nov. 3 election.

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