An NFL spokesperson Saturday denied that the league had contacted Donald Trump to complain about the schedule for the upcoming presidential-election debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
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A spokesman for the NFL, however, said the league did not send a letter to the billionaire businessman.
“While we would obviously wish the Debate Commission could find another night, we did not send a letter to Mr Trump”.
The presidential debates are scheduled to take place on Sept. 26, October 9 and October 19 – dates that were announced last September.
The first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton on September 26 will compete against ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” telecast of the New Orleans Saints vs. Atlanta Falcons.
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.
You can understand Trump’s disappointment.
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”. “That’s what she conspired for to keep Bernie Sanders from getting a large audience”.
The Commission announced the dates and sites of the debates in September 2015.
Her campaign, meanwhile, dismissed Trump’s claims, with vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine saying he’s “mystified” by what he calls Trump’s “bizarre” allegations. “As a point of reference, in a four-year period, there are four general election debates (three presidential and one vice presidential), and approximately 1,000 National Football League games”.
When asked if Trump would participate in the debates, Manafort told CBS: “He said he wants to participate in them”.
“I heard the same thing actually”, Favreau said.
While this is certainly not the first time that Donald Trump’s claims have been refuted soon after they were uttered, the way he has gone on about widely brandishing his style of political skulduggery even after winning the nomination is staggering to say the least. It added that the debates have never been rescheduled because of such conflicts.
Presidential debates are often challenging to schedule and have overlapped with football games in the past. Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley were unhappy with the DNC debate schedule; Republicans had about twice the number of debates.
Trump did allow that three debates were “fine” and that he’d rather have three than one. On both nights, baseball playoff games also aired – TBS and TNT on Oct. 11 and FOX on Oct. 22; FOX did not air the Oct. 22 debate.
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In an interview with ABC’s Sunday show “This Week”, Trump was asked if he would accept the commission’s schedule.
