Donald Trump has claimed an upcoming presidential debate between himself and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton shouldn’t have a moderator. The controversial candidate appears to be floating a controversial new idea for upcoming debates during the latter stages of the presidential election. He claims a debate without a moderator would prevent a “very unfair” showdown like that seen from Matt Lauer NBC News’ commander in chief forum last week, with Trump instead claiming the moderator would go “really hard” against him.
According to Politico , Trump was responding to Lauer’s controversial performance in last week’s event, saying “They all said I won and that Matt Lauer was easy on me. Well he wasn’t. He was — I thought he was very professional, I have to be honest. I think he’s been treated very unfairly, but they all said that I won, and what they’re doing is they’re gaming the system so that when I go into the debate, I’m gonna get — be treated very, very unfairly by the moderators.”
Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton was running a “hate-filled and negative campaign” https://t.co/b97nKsfosJ pic.twitter.com/qBF9AzMpJ8
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 13, 2016
Matt Lauer received criticism for appearing to give Donald Trump something of an easy ride during the town hall-style event, whilst questioning Clinton aggressively over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. However, Trump said such claims were untrue, saying that it was unfair for Lauer to have been lambasted like he was, and continued by saying that moderators should have no place in debates.
Trump laid out his debate plans, saying “The fact is that they’re gaming the system, and I think, maybe, we should have no moderator. Let Hillary and I sit there and just debate because I think the system is being rigged so it’s gonna be a very unfair debate, and I can see it happening right now because everyone’s saying that he was soft on Trump. Well now the new person’s gonna try to be really hard on Trump just to show, you know, the establishment what he can do. So I think it’s very unfair what they’re doing. So I think we should have a debate with no moderators — just Hillary and I sitting there talking.”
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NBC News’ Lester Holt, ABC’s Martha Raddatz, CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Fox News’ Chris Wallace have been all confirmed as moderators by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. However, Donald Trump’s plans would involve himself and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton going head to head without the guiding presence of a moderator, which would be a drastic break from the traditional presidential debate formula.
That being said, according to the Independent , there’s now uncertainty over the future of those debates following Hillary Clinton’s recent health concerns. Clinton is believed to be suffering from pneumonia, which was the cause of her recent collapsing during a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York. However, there’s now concern that Clinton won’t be able to take part in upcoming debates with Republican candidate Donald Trump.
As Hillary Clinton recovers from pneumonia, President Obama is stepping up to campaign https://t.co/m7kYtdKium pic.twitter.com/HYDihLJeOa
— CNN (@CNN) September 13, 2016
Donald Trump, however, took something of a measured approach to the news of Clinton’s health scare. Whilst many commentators expected Donald Trump to attack his rival’s decision not to disclose her health concerns at an earlier date, Trump took an unexpected approach in wishing Clinton well. The well wishes from the Trump campaign come at a time when the Republican candidate is looking to soften his image. At the same time, Trump announced plans to make public his own detailed health records.
[Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images]
