Trump said Saturday that the football league complained in a letter to him about the debate schedule.
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NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy tweeted that the league had never sent a letter to Trump voicing their concern about the scheduling of the debates.
You may have heard that ratings-conscious Donald Trump is miffed that two of the three general election presidential debates are scheduled on the same autumn nights as prime-time National Football League games.
The dates for the three debates ahead of the November 8 presidential election “will serve the American public well”, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates said in a statement on Sunday, noting they were set a year in advance.
“The CPD did not consult with any political parties or campaigns in making these decisions”, the group said.
Should the presidential debates be rescheduled?
Three presidential debates and one for the vice presidential candidates are scheduled.
“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. And I was told they set up a schedule last fall and neither campaign – because who knew, we didn’t know who the nominees would be – were involved”, Clinton reportedly said.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” for its program Sunday, Trump was asked if he would accept the commission’s debate schedule.
Trump said he’s satisfied with the number of proposed debates. If all of his conditions aren’t met, Trump will threaten to hold his own event on debate night.
Newt Gingrich, a Trump adviser and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, tweeted that the scheduling “makes me think the commission is rigged to help hide Hillary from the voters”.
In a traditional presidential debate, Clinton will expose and possibly humiliate her Republican opponent.
You can understand Trump’s disappointment. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”, Trump said. The NFL denied they sent him a letter. The CPD determined the schedule for the debates a year ago.
It’s impossible to know whether Trump’s real goal here is to change the dates of the debates, or to get out of them entirely.
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The first debate goes up against a Monday Night Football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons, while the second debate is up against the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. The CPD announced the dates for all three presidential debates in September 2015. He also accused Clinton of rigging the previous Democratic debates past year against her primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign suggested that was an effort to limit the size of the audience. You can accept the recommendations of the debate commission?
