Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he is unhappy with the dates set for his televised debates with White House rival Hillary Clinton, putting him in conflict with an independent commission that set the calendar nearly a year ago.
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Top @NFL spokesman tells me: “While we’d obviously wish the debate commission could find another night, we did not send a letter to Trump”.
Trump: Well, I don’t like dates against- you know, Hillary Clinton wants to be against the NFL.
“I got a letter from the National Football League saying “this is ridiculous, why are the debates against” – because the National Football League doesn’t want to go against the debates because the debates are going to be pretty massive from what I understand”, Trump said. We’re not going to. “‘Cause the debates are gonna be pretty massive, from what I understand, OK?”
“Listen, I don’t know about whether the commission is rigged, I just think there’s a lot of flaws with this commission”, Priebus said.
Yet the schedule was determined by the Commission last year, as it always is before presidential election years.
Miller was asked directly by “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter whether Trump would seek to change the schedule in negotiations about the debates with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates.
“The Commission on Presidential Debates started working more than 18 months ago to identify religious and federal holidays, baseball league playoff games, NFL games and other events in order to select the best nights for the 2016 debates”.
The first debate is set for September 26, the same night as a Monday Night Football matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints. No one in the south is going to be watching a debate during a rivalry game between the Saints and Falcons.
“The CPD did not consult with any political parties or campaigns in making these decisions”, it said. “She doesn’t maybe like she did with Bernie Sanders, where they were on Saturday nights when nobody’s home”.
“You’ll have to ask the Trump campaign where they get their information from”.
This story has been corrected to show that Trump’s tweet was posted Friday night, not Saturday.
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Trump got caught in his lie after ABC News released footage of the interview set to air Sunday.
