“It is impossible to avoid all sporting events, and there have been nights on which debates and games occurred in most election cycles”, it said in a statement.
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The presidential debates are scheduled to take place on Sept. 26, October 9 and October 19 – dates that were announced last September. First of all, the CPD – a nonpartisan commission – released its presidential debate schedule in September 2015, while the National Football League released their 2016-2017 game schedule months later, in April 2016.
The NFL was not the cultural force it is today when the first major televised presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.
An NFL spokesman said Saturday: ‘While we’d obviously wish the debate commission could find another night, we did not send a letter to Trump’.
“I don’t think we should be against the NFL”, Trump told ABC’s “This Week”.
STELTER: Right. Well, the Clinton campaign, I think, probably knew when the debates were scheduled and knew when the football games were scheduled, because thecalendar for the debates came out in September of a year ago.
Still, Priebus stopped short of agreeing with Trump that the commission is “rigged”, which Trump suggested in a Saturday tweet and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also implied in an interview with “Face the Nation” earlier Sunday. The independent, nonpartisan commission said that no political party or campaign was consulted when the dates were selected a year ago. And I was told they set up a schedule last fall’. The presidential debates will be on Monday, Sept. 26; Sunday, Oct 9; and Wednesday, Oct 19; with the VP debate on Tuesday, Oct 4. “I think we’re a big family and I think some of these bruises take time to heal”, he said.
The Clinton campaign did not comment on Trump’s assertions.
The debate may hurt the National Football League ratings and vice versa, but the scheduling conflict is unlikely to have a major impact on millions of Americans’ voting decisions.
Trump also stated to ABC News that Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were both against the NFL. That year one of the presidential debates and the vice presidential debate ran opposite a Monday night game and a Thursday night game, respectively.
Another Trump aide asserted that “millions of voters” will be “disenfranchised by these chosen dates”.
The parties are not involved in the debate scheduling, a point that Spicer made on CNN: The commission “announces the dates without consultation of the parties or the candidates”. The effect of “Monday Night Football” on the September 26 debate probably won’t be as great, since all the channels that normally would air the debate will still be in play.
Trump had previously done eleven of the twelve debates during the Republican Party presidential primary.
Trump did say three debates were “fine” and that he’d rather have three than one.
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“But we’re not going to fall to Hillary Clinton and the ploy that she did against Bernie Sanders of trying to have the lowest-viewing audience”.
