Trump says presidential debates shouldn’t compete with NFL

Earlier, when Trump had said that Hillary Clinton and her Democratic aides were responsible for scheduling the presidential debates alongside National Football League matches, the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan group with members of both parties, released a statement refuting the assertion, saying that it had “announced the number, dates and sites for the 2016 general election debates in September 2015”. Same as last time w/ Bernie.

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”.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced that there will be one debate for the vice presidential hopefuls and three for the presidential candidates. The NFL, here embodied by BrianMcCarthy of NFL PR, says that this did not happen. “I like three debates”, he said. “I think that’s fine, I think that’s enough”. (Yes, I know we have Thursday night National Football League games now, but I personally don’t approve of them and if we have to miss a game I’d rather it be one of those.) The primary race debates were moved around and added at the drop of a hat without the world coming to an end. On Oct. 9, the second debate will air opposite the Sunday night game featuring the Giants vs. the Packers on NBC.

The commission has scheduled three debates between the nominees – September 26, October 9 and October 19.

In Trump’s mind, Clinton is the sinister Svengali of American politics, a crooked manipulator bending the system to her every whim. “We will be at the debates set by the bipartisan debate commission and expect he will too”, Podesta said on Twitter.

Because Trump skipped one of the GOP primary debates in January, there has been speculation among observers that he may quibble with the fall debate schedule or even threaten to not show up.

Priebus suggested the best night to “maximize” audiences for the debates is to hold them on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

“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”. Each debate will be 90-minutes and will focus on “leading issues facing the nation”, organizers said.

The group serves as event sponsor and sets the participation criteria, dates, sites and formats.

Neither party is involved with running the commission, which is governed by an independent board of directors.

Although Donald Trump’s supporters echoed his statements regardless of the truth, his critics said making such claims were only an excuse to try and back out of the debates.

In a statement released Sunday, the commission said it started working more than 18 months ago to identify all religious and federal holidays as well as baseball and football games and other major events. It added that the debates have never been rescheduled because of such conflicts.