The Final Presidential Debate 2016: What Time, How to Watch and Live Stream Online
(CBS NEWS) Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will face off on the debate stage for the third and final time on Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
Since their last combative meeting at the second debate, a number of women have come out publicly to accuse Trump of sexually assaulting them -- allegations that Trump has repeatedly denied.
Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, has had to face the daily fallout from thousands of leaked emails made public by WikiLeaks, hacked from the private email account of John Podesta, the campaign’s chairman.
This debate will mirror the more traditional staging of the first debate and will be moderated by “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Nevada is one of the major battleground states up for grabs on Nov. 8. Going into the debate, CBS News’ most recent Battleground Tracker poll found Clinton leads Trump.
Both candidates squared off at the first debate on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University on Long Island in Hempstead, New York and at the second debate Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. And their running mates met earlier this month in Farmville, Virginia for their debate, which was hosted by CBSN’s Elaine Quijano.
As far as the topics for the final debate, Wallace selected debt and entitlements, immigration, economy, Supreme Court, foreign hot spots and fitness to be president -- with about 15 minutes allotted for each one.
With 20 days to go until Election Day, the latest CBS News poll found Clinton has widened her lead. In a four-way race involving third-party candidates, Clinton now leads Trump by 9 percentage points -- 47 percent to 38 percent. In a two-way matchup, Clinton leads Trump by 11 percentage points -- 51 percent to 40 percent.
Trump has spent the last few days denying allegations from a number of women that he engaged in sexual misconduct with them. He has also doubled down on his claim that the election is “rigged” and that there is large-scale voter fraud even though the evidence shows that it rarely occurs.
His wife, Melania, spoke out for the first time since July this week in interviews with CNN and Fox News. She told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she thinks her husband was “egged on” by “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in the now famous 2005 video in which Trump is heard making lewd comments about women.
Trump has also bashed Speaker Paul Ryan, who last week said he would no longer defend or campaign for Trump. And he has criticized “Saturday Night Lives” portrayal of him.
Clinton has remained off the campaign trail the last few days to prep for the final debate. In addition to the WikiLeaks email dumps, the FBI released new documents Monday that showed a senior State Department official asked for the FBI’s help last year to change the classification level of an email from Hillary Clinton’s private server.