How Trump torpedoed the presidential debates
The president has spent the past four years
undermining the legitimacy of the “so-called Commission on Presidential
Debates.”
By MARC
CAPUTO
09/30/2020
08:38 PM EDT
Updated:
09/30/2020 09:58 PM EDT
For more
than 30 years, the Commission on Presidential Debates managed to keep the peace
between Republican and Democratic nominees and set the terms of engagement in
an official, serious and highly structured way.
On Tuesday,
in the span of less than two hours, President Donald Trump laid waste to those
long standing norms and traditions.
In the
aftermath of a chaotic and widely-panned debate marked by Trump’s repeated
interruptions of his opponent, falsehoods and persistent squabbling with the
moderator, the commission announced Wednesday it’s considering
as-yet-unspecified changes to “ensure a more orderly discussion.”
The
commission’s brief statement didn’t mention either candidate by name, but it
was clear the move was intended to crack down on the disruptions largely,
though not exclusively, instigated by the president.
For the
COPD, it was a tacit admission of failure. For Trump, it offered a capstone for
his four-year campaign attacking the legitimacy of what he refers to as the
“so-called Commission on Presidential Debates.”
“They’re
only doing this because their guy got pummeled last night.” the Trump campaign
responded in a statement. “President Trump was the dominant force and now Joe
Biden is trying to work the refs. They shouldn’t be moving the goalposts and
changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
The
suggestion that the commission was contemplating rules changes at Biden’s
behest was in keeping with Trump’s grievance-driven politics, serving as a
campaign-sustaining elixir for a candidate who thrives on chaos and picking
fights with the political establishment. It’s also a preview of what’s to come
for the next 34 days on the campaign trail as Trump, trailing in the polls,
seeks to cement the narrative that the fix is in and the system is rigged
against him in his bid to win a second term.
“He’s a
grievance guy. Everybody’s always out to screw him,” Nelson Warfield, a veteran
Republican strategist and debate-prep specialist, said in describing Trump’s
mindset and his appeal to his base. “He wins despite the establishment
colluding against him.”
Trump’s
efforts to undermine the commission date back before his first debate with
Hillary Clinton, when in August 2016 he claimed without evidence that Clinton
and the commission colluded to schedule the first two debates during NFL
football games to minimize the size of the viewing audience.
Trump then
raised the issue of a biased debate, saying he wanted a “fair moderator” — an
issue he resurrected in his clashes Tuesday night with moderator Chris Wallace,
the gravelly voiced, no-nonsense host of “Fox News Sunday.”
Despite his
objections, Trump ultimately participated in the 2016 debates. But in October
of that year, after a debate in which he was widely considered to be the debate
loser in snap polls and focus groups, he attacked the commission once again,
suggesting that studio sound issues were designed to undermine him.
The
commission remained off his radar for another three years, until in December
2019 — not long before the first Democratic primary votes — Trump began bashing
it for alleged bias and being “stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers.”
He mused publicly about doing more debates and circumventing the commission.
None of
that came to pass. Behind-the-scenes negotiations between the campaigns and the
commission this month remained out of the public eye and the first debate took
shape without any drama.
“They
accepted the venues. They accepted the format. They accepted the moderators.
There was an uncharacteristic lack of Trumpian nonsense,” said Philippe Reines,
who played Trump in Clinton’s debate preparations in 2016. “They didn’t work
the refs behind the scenes. But obviously, it gave way.”
The
commission — a bipartisan nonprofit composed of political, media and
educational figures — declined to comment for this article.
A sign of
what was to come Tuesday night occurred the morning of the debate. The Trump
campaign amplified a baseless conspiracy theory that Biden’s campaign wanted
the Democrat to wear an earpiece so he could have instructions given to him
remotely — a repeat of a false claim advanced by the president’s son and allies
in 2016 against Clinton. Biden’s campaign denied the claim.
Then came
the debate. Within moments, Trump began interrupting Biden, running through
moderator Chris Wallace’s questions as well.
“Mr.
President,” Wallace said at one point. “Your campaign agreed both sides get
two-minute answers. Uninterrupted. Your side agreed. Observe what your campaign
agreed to.”
An
increasingly frustrated Wallace kept interrupting the president, imploring him
to let Biden finish. Suddenly, the president had the clash he appeared to be
spoiling for: a fight with the establishment media.
“I guess
I'm debating you, not him,” Trump said. “But that's OK. I'm not surprised.”
Trump’s
longtime friend and advisor Roger Stone quipped that “Trump very clearly
defeated Chris Wallace in the debate with Biden coming in a distant third ....
This is the perfect example of why you don’t accept the authority of the
Commission on Presidential Debates, which is neither a commission, nor
appointed by the president nor does it have anything to do with the debates.”
The Biden
campaign has pledged to accept “whatever set of rules” the commission comes up
with. The next presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 15.
Whether his
attacks on Biden, Wallace and the commission were successful is an open
question. Some veteran Republican strategists and even some of Trump’s own
advisers grimaced at his performance, fearing it turned off undecided and swing
voters, especially women, who are siding with Biden in droves.
“He’s his
own political strategist. It’s like an alternate universe. But the fact is,
he’s in the Oval Office and so it’s impossible to argue with him,” one Trump
adviser said privately. “If we didn’t have a lot of support from women heading
into the debate, we sure as hell didn’t walk out with more.”
But Florida
Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of Trump’s top TV surrogates, said doubters don’t
understand the president or his base.
“The
president was dominant. His voters know that Washington needs to be
interrupted,” Gaetz said. “A lot of MAGA voters resent the elitism that Chris
Wallace personifies.”
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