The Commission on Presidential Debates made the schedule last September after consulting with officials in both parties.
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And you lied when you claimed the National Football League reached out to you about this conflict in fear it would wreak havoc with the ridiculous profits they make from televising the games.
The debate scheduling process is always hard. On Oct. 9, the second debate will air opposite the Sunday night game featuring the Giants vs. the Packers on NBC.
The presidential debate commission serves as the event sponsor and sets the participation criteria, dates, sites and formats.
Donald Trump is running scared, which is why he is already doing everything he can to avoid debating Hillary Clinton.
Clinton countered that by saying today, ‘There’s a non-partisan independent commission that sets up the debates, right?
STELTER: Will Trump skip the debates if they are continued to be scheduled on football nights? Instead, he and his allies have questioned the fairness of the scheduling.
Trump on Saturday took to Twitter to criticize the schedule of debates between him and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The statement contradicted Trump’s assertion that he had received a letter from the National Football League bemoaning the fact that the debate dates overlap with scheduled games.
The problem is that Donald Trump is losing, and he needs the debates way more than the debates need him.
He added: “And I don’t think we should be against the NFL”. The most watched Veep debate in American history was the bout between Sara Palin and Joe Biden in 2008, its viewership exceeding all the presidential debates of that year.
Other top Republicans insisted on Sunday that the schedule remained open for debate.
The debate organizers also pointed out that while football fans value watching games live, debates are easy to find on on-demand platforms.
In a statement released on Sunday, the organization confirmed that the dates would not be moved.
However, while league telecasts usually dominate lists of the most-watched TV shows, there are presidential debates that have effectively competed with prime-time NFL games. That leaves only Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which themselves may be affected by baseball’s World Series.
MILLER: Brian, if you take a look back at Hillary Clinton’s track record in the primary, numerous occasions, they had pushes to go and have debates at the same time as other big events that were going on, head to head against things that would be big conflicts and keep voters excluded.
The commission noted that in a four-year period, there are four general election debates – three for presidential candidates and one for vice presidential candidates.
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Furthermore, the commission said it purposefully announces the debate dates a year ahead of time “in order for the television networks to have maximum lead time and predictability”. So, what exactly is going on with Trump’s NFL/debate debacle?
