OAN’s Brooke Mallory
1:22 PM – Thursday, May 2, 2024
After rejecting the Trump campaign’s requests to fast forward the date of the general debate, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced that it is still sticking to its original plan to air the first broadcast on September 16th, 2024.
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“Trump’s campaign said in a statement Tuesday that the commission’s schedule does not begin ‘until after millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots,’” NBC News reported.
The commission said that its September event is the earliest it has ever held a debate in a statement on Wednesday, one day after senior campaign aides to Trump, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, released a statement of their own calling for earlier debates.
The previous record was established on September 21st, 1980, during the Ronald Reagan and John Anderson debate era.
Senior Trump advisors reiterated their willingness to collaborate directly with the Biden campaign. Both urged “every television network” to host the debates “with or without the stubborn Presidential Debates Commission.”
However, the commission responded soon after, saying, “as it always does, the CPD considered multiple factors in selecting debate dates in order to make them accessible by the American public,” including religious holidays, federal holidays, early voting, and dates when individual states close ballots.
In response to the Trump advisers’ assertion that “millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots” during the first debate, the commission claimed that it “purposefully chose September 16 after a comprehensive study of early voting rules in every state,” taking into account, among other things, North Carolina’s Sept. 6th start date for mail-in ballots.
Pennsylvania voters can pick up, fill out, and return ballots at their county boards of elections on September 16th, the day of the first debate, according to CPD. Voters in Minnesota, one of the first states to allow in-person early voting, can start casting ballots on Friday, September 20th.
“The CPD has only one mission: to sponsor and produce general election debates that inform and educate the public. Our schedule is designed with that single mission in mind. The colleges and universities preparing to host these debates look forward to being part of an historic 2024 series of forums,” the commission added.
The commission also announced intentions to host the second debate on October 1st at Virginia State University and the third on October 9th at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City, following the first debate at Texas State University.
A vice presidential debate is scheduled on September 25th at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.
On a Sirius XM broadcast last week with Howard Stern, President Joe Biden stated that he would be “happy” to debate former President Donald Trump, although he did not say when.
Election Day falls on Nov. 5th of this year.
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