The co-chairs of the Commission on Presidential Debates criticized two of Biden’s senior advisers for the Biden campaign’s decision to forego traditional debates and instead face former President Trump twice so far.
Biden administration adviser Anita Dunn and former White House chief of staff Ron Klain are responsible for the campaign’s decisions, said Frank, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee at the time the two major parties agreed to form the Republican Party.・Mr. Farenkopf said. Bipartisan Commission on Debate in the Late 1980s.
The Biden campaign’s letter to the committee said there was “no question” of Dunn, Klain and Fahrenkopf’s results. said in an interview With Politico.
Mr. Klain has represented Democratic presidential candidates and worked with the committee since 2000.
President Biden’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, informed the committee in a letter Wednesday that she plans to work directly with news organizations to coordinate a debate between Biden and Trump.
“Since Donald Trump has said he will debate ‘any time, any place,’ we hope that both sides will quickly accept an invitation for a broadcast media debate on the above terms,” he wrote in the letter. Stated. “Americans need a discussion about issues, not a boring discussion about arguments.”
President Trump quickly agreed to accept the terms proposed by the Biden campaign for debates to be held in June and September. CNN announced it would host the first episode, and ABC announced it would host the second shortly after.
The move effectively sidelines the commission, which has organized presidential debates since 1988 and had already announced dates for three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in the fall. Ta.
“I know where all this happens [from] — This is Anita Dunn,” Fahrenkopf told Politico. “This is her plan. I know it. She’s been fighting — she’s been against the commission for years and years and years.”
He pointed to Dunn and Crane’s involvement. In the 2015 report Dunn, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center for Public Policy, which has advocated for reforms to the debate process, said: “They hate us and they always do.”
Fahrenkopf also countered three criticisms that the Biden campaign cited as reasons for organizing the committee debate.
O’Malley Dillon’s letter said the debate was scheduled too late this year, as early voting should have already begun, and that the debate was filled with “destructive partisans and donors” and that the He claimed that the committee was “unwilling or unable to do so.” ” was meant to enforce that rule after Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden during one debate in 2020.
Fahrenkopf said the committee decided the debate needed to be held after Sept. 6 because not all states will finalize their ballots until then. He said one of the key conditions for determining a candidate’s eligibility is that the candidate receives enough votes to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the race. .
Only a handful of states will have completed their ballots by the time of the first debate next month.
Mr Fahrenkopf said accusations that the debate had become a “raucous spectacle” were false.
“And they know it’s a lie,” he said. “I mean, they were there last time too. The cheers don’t last.”
In response to criticism that the committee didn’t do enough to control President Trump during the infamous 2020 debate, Fahrenkopf said what moderator Chris Wallace or anyone else could have done I wondered if that was the case.
“What were we going to do?” he said. “Were you going to jump up on stage?” Chris did the best he could and said, “You’re not following the rules.” You are breaking the rules you have set for yourself. ” So I don’t know what we could have done. ”
Klain told Politico that he still stands by the committee’s criticism of how the debate was run, calling the fact that millions of Americans will vote before the first debate “indisputable.” Stated. He said the debate will be “large scale, with many donors to the hosting universities and CPD’s corporate sponsors.” That too is an undeniable fact. ”
Dunn declined to comment to Politico.
But Fahrenkopf also said the Biden campaign’s choice was a smart strategy, arguing that Biden had an advantage in these developments. He said he agreed with the analysis that “this could be one of the big failures of the entire election cycle” for President Trump.
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