Dueling Trump and Biden town halls spur NBC protests

The second presidential debate may be canceled, but there will still be plenty of political fireworks on Thursday night.

Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, will participate in dueling town halls that are airing on rival news networks at the exact same time.

Biden will participate in a 90-minute Philadelphia town hall moderated by ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, which has been scheduled since last week.

But NBC dropped a bombshell on Wednesday, announcing that Trump will also field questions from voters in a competing hour-long Miami event moderated by “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie. Both events begin at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. This led more than 100 prominent actors, writers and producers to send a letter to NBCUniversal executives protesting the network’s move to let the president “counterprogram” his rival, the Wall Street Journal reported. And many viewers threatened to boycott NBC and affiliated networks like MSNBC.

So how did we get here?