What’s the Format of the Third Presidential Debate?

2016 Presidential Debate, second presidential debate, presidential debate st. louis

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton at the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. (Getty)

The third and final presidential debate will take place on Wednesday, October 19th. What’s the format this time around?

While the second debate took on a town hall format, that’s not the case this week. Instead, the third debate will take on the exact same format as the first debate, as determined by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates. In case you’ve forgotten, that means it will consist of six segments of 15 minutes each. Each segment will open with a question, which both candidates have two minutes to answer. The rest of the time will be spent on the candidates responding to one another and on the moderator asking followup questions.

The topics for the debate are immigration, entitlements and debt, the Supreme Court, the economy, foreign policy, and each candidate’s fitness to serve as president, according to Politico. Chris Wallace of Fox News serves as the event’s moderator.

This third debate’s format will likely be good news for Donald Trump. The Republican candidate is clearly much more conformable standing at a podium with a microphone rather than speaking in a town hall, and the result was a few awkward moments during the second debate during which Trump seemed to loom over Clinton or pace behind her. Luckily for him, Wednesday’s event reverts back to the format Trump has more experience with.

The third presidential debate will last 90 minutes, beginning at 9:00 p.m. and ending at about 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. It takes place about three weeks away from election day, and during the event, both candidates will have to answer tough questions about recent news stories for the first time. Trump will have to speak about the nine women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault, while Hillary Clinton will have to address the many emails and Wall Street speech transcripts released by Wikileaks in recent days.

As usual, the final debate will be broadcast on all major news networks, including Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. It will also be streaming on the Internet on YouTube and Twitter.