President Donald Trump Says He Won't Participate In Virtual Debate

WASHINGTON (AP)-President Donald Trump, who has the coronavirus, says he will not participate in next week's presidential debate if it's held virtually.

Trump says in a Fox Business interview that that arrangement is "not acceptable to us."

And he's accusing moderators of trying to protect his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates had announced moments earlier that the second debate between Trump and Biden will take place virtually because of the president's diagnosis of COVID-19.

The commission cited a need "to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate" and said the candidates would "participate from separate remote locations" while the participants and moderator remain in Miami.

It’s not the first debate in which the candidates are not in the same room. In 1960, the third presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy was broadcast with the two candidates on opposite coasts.