A day after the official Commission on Presidential Debates said changes were needed to insure a better debate presentation for voters, President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that he might not agree to any new debate rules.
“Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?” Trump wrote on Twitter as he went to a fundraising event at his New Jersey golf club.
The President’s repeated interruptions of answers by Joe Biden had drawn a mid-debate rebuke by moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, who implored the President to adhere to the rules agree upon by both campaigns.
“Frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting,” Wallace said, chiding the President on national TV and radio. Wallace also had to try to rein in Biden, who did some of the same interrupting at other points as well.
In its Tuesday statement, the Commission said the first Trump-Biden “debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.”
While no announcements have been made as yet, one of the ideas floated has been switching off the microphones of a candidate who tries to sidestep the rules.
While the President insists he did well in the first debate - most polls do not agree with him on that - a number of Republicans have offered up very public advice on his strategy of trying to interrupt Biden as often as possible.
Any rules changes made by the debate commission would have to be approved by both the Trump and Biden campaigns, and on an afternoon call with reporters, the Trump Campaign indicated it was not on aboard with any new rules - though none have been proposed as yet.
The next debate is scheduled for October 15 in Miami. It is a town hall format, where voters ask most of the questions.
The final presidential debate is a week later on October 22.