PRESIDENT & FIRST LADY PAY FOR THIEIR LACK OF WEARING MASKS

 

                         …Trump & First lady, not wearing masks at First Debate

 

As expected, Trump is against any changes in debate rules

 

President Trump and his top aides have signaled that they would reject any changes to the presidential debate format.  Members of the commission in charge of the matchups zeroed in on potential adjustments aimed at avoiding a repeat of the first debate’s chaotic faceoff between Trump and Democrat, Joe Biden.

Since the president and the First Lady now have Covid-19, it may just be a moot point if all of the future debates need to be cancelled.

The changes by the commission, which could be announced as early as this week, they would obviously be aimed at reining in behavior like Trump’s unruly approach, and for making the debates more orderly.  But the looming dispute with the Trump camp casts a cloud of uncertainty over whether there will be those remaining debates.  This includes the one scheduled for next Wednesday’s between the vice-presidential nominees.  So far, it's still on.

Biden had told reporters that he is open to changes following the debate in which Trump repeatedly cut him off and talked over him. Trump’s campaign officials told reporters that Biden’s team had proposed several alterations, including allowing the moderator to mute candidates’ microphones; having more questions addressed directly to each candidate; adding opening and closing statements; and limiting the “free discussion” period, which due to the president, it devolved into inaudible crosstalk.

But as expected, Trump has totally rejected such ideas, suggesting they would be aimed at eroding his advantage. “Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?” Trump actually wrote this on social media.  He really thinks that display of being the “bully-on-the-block” was a win for him.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, an independent body, unilaterally determines rules for the debate exchanges and does not need approval from either campaign to change the terms, giving Trump few options if the commission does adopt the changes.  That is, other than Trump accepting them, or his boycotting the debates.

“We do not want any changes to what has been laid out and already been agreed to for the second and third debates,” said Trump campaign strategist Jason Miller. “We have not asked for any changes. The Biden camp has.”

But Miller stopped short of threatening to boycott the debates, saying that Trump “fully plans on participating.”  (This was before the positive results of the President’s and the First Lady’s tests.)

Biden’s campaign declined to answer questions about the debate negotiations or the suggestions that Trump’s team said they had offered. “We are running our campaign, not running the debates,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The caustic first debate prompted outrage and calls for change after Trump ignored his time limits throughout and repeatedly interrupted Biden.  Several commentators called it “The worst debate in history”, and the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, told the New York Times afterward, “I’m just sad with the way last night turned out.”

Beyond Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, the two remaining Trump-Biden matchups could be among the few opportunities to shake up the race, with Election Day only four weeks away. The next session, in Miami on Oct. 15, is scheduled to have a “town hall” format with undecided voters posing questions, an arrangement that could significantly change the dynamic.

So far, the presidential campaign has been remarkably steady, with Biden holding a consistent lead in all the national polls and in the surveys and polls of the swing states.  And since the debate, Biden has increased his lead in any states.

More than 73 million viewers tuned in for the first debate.  That was a large audience, but it was smaller than the 84 million who watched the first exchange between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

During Tuesday’s 90-minute session, Trump interrupted Biden so many times that the former vice president at one point told him to “shut up, man.”  The president often scoffed at Biden’s answers, while Biden smiled incredulously at Trump’s bazaar behavior.

Biden’s and Trump’s teams met with debate commission staff at 9 AM, the day after the debate in a pre-scheduled session to review the upcoming vice-presidential faceoff in Utah.  Biden’s campaign offered input about potential changes to the format, according to Max Miller, the lead negotiator for Trump campaign, and another person familiar with the conversation.

Miller said Brady Williamson, Biden’s debate negotiator, offered “suggestions” for changes but “he wasn’t demanding it.”  The teams were set to meet again last Friday, but did they ??????

Trump’s aides last Thursday also attacked the debate commission itself, with Jason Miller saying that those who run it are “permanent swamp monsters” who want to cozy up to Biden.  But that was expected, coming from Trump’s team.

“They picked the moderator. They picked the questions, but it didn’t turn out the way that they [the commission] wanted,” Miller said.  But in truth, the questions were written by the Fox moderator, not the commission.

Privately, Trump campaign officials did acknowledged that, after the first debate, the debate commission is likely to limit how much Trump and Biden can engage in direct verbal combat.

The Trump team said they saw that attacking the commission was good strategy, and was something Trump wanted to do for many months.  Many aides viewed Trump’s debate performance as less than stellar, so criticizing the commission as unfair to Trump is an alternative way to bolster the president, they stated.

Trump advisers such as Kellyanne Conway and Chris Christie were trying to convince the president to talk less in the next debate, while striking a different tone that was less combative.  But now, both Conway and Christie have tested positive for the virus.

There was a widespread belief in Trump’s orbit that the debate was a missed opportunity.  This is according to conversations with eight White House officials, consisting of campaign advisers and others close to the president.  They stated that was because Trump had talked too much and interrupted too frequently.

“My advice to the president is to let Biden speak because he’s going to wear himself down,” Conway said. “He will wear himself out. Folks already lack confidence in his competence. It is well known when Biden speaks with or without notes, he does sometimes stumble and bumble, and he has confused his numbers and can make a mess out of it.”

Biden’s supporters argued that Trump’s performance was purely a display of bullying that would turn off everyone other than his base.  However, they acknowledged it was sometimes hard for Biden to get his message across, given the frequent interruptions by Trump.

Asked whether he would accept a change that would allow mics to be muted, Biden said he’s open to that as long as “we have an opportunity to respond to the questions from the people in the audience.”

It is unclear if the commission will be making any changes to next week’s vice-presidential debate in Salt Lake City. That will be a seated exchange. (with the candidates sitting 12 feet apart due to coronavirus restrictions) The debate is scheduled to be moderated by Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington bureau chief.

Aides and allies of Vice President Pence said they believed he would make a traditional Republican pitch for the president’s record.  And after the first “scorched-earth debate”, some of them said they welcomed the change of pace and Pence’s penchant for staying on-message.

“He’s playing the same role in the debates that he did in 2016, which is coming in after the president had a big debate and made a lot headlines. He’ll just be Mike Pence,” said one senior White House official who was not authorized to discuss debate prep. “That means he’s going to be a conservative guy, being a former talk radio host who talks up MAGA and Trump.”

Still, Pence’s leadership of the coronavirus task force is likely to be front and center since the pandemic’s death toll in the United States surpassed 210,000, and now that the president has tested positive.

Most Trump associates said they expect Pence, a conservative with deep ties to religious groups and evangelical leaders, to stay cool even if Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), attacks him over the pandemic, abortion rights or gay rights.

“All he has to do is be kind and pleasant, to be reassuring and competent, and remind people that Kamala Harris is a San Francisco radical,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a real Trump ally. “He works well with this president because he has his own style. You don’t need two people who are as aggressive and as tough as Trump. He’s a bridge to everyday Americans.”

I don’t think that, based on Newt’s questionable reputation, Newt Gingrich is not the appropriate individual to be a judge of Mike Pence as an “everyday American”.

Harris and her advisers are aware that she has not debated a Republican in over a decade.  On a fundraiser with former ambassador Doug Hickey last month, Harris jumped in when Hickey said he, “felt sorry for Pence for having to face her.”  “Mike Pence debates really well,” Harris said. “So perhaps you should lower the expectations!”

Her chief of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, offered a similar message.  “Mike Pence is a very good debater, and we have to be mindful of that,” Jean-Pierre said.

Harris said that this debate will be different from those she took part in during the Democratic primary.

“Then it was mostly about speaking up about my position on various issues as compared to my colleagues on the stage,” Harris told this to Hillary Clinton on a new episode of Clinton’s new podcast.

“This time, it will be about requiring some level of knowledge, if not mastery, of Joe’s record, the Vice President Mike Pence’s record, Trump’s record, and of course defending my own record,” Harris said.

“I don’t necessarily want to be the fact-checker,” Harris told Clinton. “At the same time, depending on how far he goes with whatever he does, he’s going to have to be accountable for what he says.

Mike Pence is going to have to deal with the supporting his “Liar-in-Chief” president, which should be interesting to watch.  That is, if the debates stay on schedule.

Copyright G. Ater 2020