The CPD announced that “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt will moderate the first presidential debate scheduled for Monday, September 26th, at Hofstra University in NY.
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On Oct. 9, the second presidential debate will be held at Washington University in St. Louis and will be hosted by Martha Raddatz of ABC News and Anderson Cooper of CNN.
In early October CBS News anchor Elaine Quijano moderates the Vice Presidential debate.
This is likely a reason that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, who has been one of cable news’ most prominent anchors over the past year, wasn’t picked, given Donald Trump’s qualms with her moderation of a Republican primary debate.
Will Trump catch up with Clinton at the presidential debates?
The third and final presidential debate will be held at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on October 19 and will be hosted by Fox News’s Chris Wallace.
“These journalists bring extensive experience to the job of moderating, and understand the importance of using expanded time periods effectively”, said CPD co-chairs Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry. No, I expect to do all three”, he quipped, adding that the choice of moderators won’t keep him away.”I like them – I respect the moderators.
The commission had a harder-than-usual time choosing the moderators due to Trump’s history of media-bashing and Hillary Clinton’s unique relationship with the press.
Randy Falco, the President and CEO of Univision, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, wrote an open letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates on Friday expressing “disappointment, and frankly disbelief”, that the Commission did not choose a Hispanic journalist to moderate one of the debates.
Last month, the Commission – a private organization controlled by the Republican and Democratic parties – said that only candidates with at least 15 percent support in an average of five national opinion polls will be allowed to participate in the debates.
“I’ve seen some people do so much prep work that when they get out there, they can’t speak”.
Wallace is has close personal and professional ties to Roger Ailes, who was his boss until a few weeks ago and is now reportedly helping Trump prepare for the debate. “I did them in other cases-we had, I guess, 11 debates”.
The bipartisan commission that has orchestrated all the debates since 1988 defended the schedule – and signaled that the dates would not move despite Trump’s objection.
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The sporting event overlap has happened many times before, but Trump alleged that Clinton and the Democrats were “trying to rig the debates”.
