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Presidential Debate Moderators Announced

It was previously reported that the commission was struggling to select moderators who wouldn’t be subjected to accusations of bias, a particular problem this election due to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “aggressive attacks on the media and complaints about unfair treatment”.

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Trump is not a stranger to this kind of events.

The third and final presidential debate will be moderated by “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace and will be hosted by the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Oct. 19.

An independent candidate has little to no chance to gain debate access, and thus little chance to affect the electorate.

The second debate, in a town hall format on October 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, will be moderated by ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, who moderated the vice presidential debate in 2012, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. talk over each other during the Democratic presidential primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina, Jan. 17, 2016.

“I am honored to be selected by the Commission to moderate one of the debates, and very proud to be the first Fox reporter to get this assignment”, he said. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of ABC’s “This Week”, will moderate the second debate, set for October 9 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listens during a primary debate sponsored by CNN at the University of Miami in Florida on March 10. In a June interview, he pressed for evidence to support Trump’s claim that Clinton was asleep at critical times during the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and got the casino magnate to admit that his assertion might not be true. A new poll released August 31 conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post found that 59 percent of registered voters view Clinton unfavorably, while 60 percent view Trump unfavorably.

Will Trump catch up with Clinton at the presidential debates?

“The job description is to be both a journalist, a moderator, and a circus navigator, I think”.

‘Look, ‘ Trump replied, ‘I didn’t start it’. Moderators often had trouble keeping the debate on track. According to a Morning Consult survey, 52 percent of those polled said Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, should be included in the presidential debate, while 47-percent want Stein to join the stage.

With Trump in the mix, there’s also plenty of potential for shock value.

If Kelly had gotten the gig, many thought that would have been a deal breaker for Trump after what Kelly and the GOP candidate went through during the notorious Kelly-Trump sparring session that came out of the Republican debate.

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You can read the full letter here, via Deadline.

CNN presenter Anderson Cooper