On Thursday, the Republican National Committee announced that it had unanimously voted for the withdrawal from the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates has been responsible overseeing presidential debates ever since the 1980s.
The RNC says that, from now on, it will require candidates to sign a pledge that they won’t participate in general election or primary debates unless the debate has been sanctioned by the party, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This is a significant decision and an escalation from President Donald Trump’s previous grievances with the debate commission. The vote means that unless there is a considerable shakeup in the way that presidential debates are held, Republicans will not participate in presidential debates the way they have been run for decades — though the RNC says that it won’t be pulling candidates out entirely.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement that the RNC believes, without evidence, that debates have been “biased” against Republicans. The committee will work to “find newer, better debate platforms.”
The 1987 formation of the debate commission as a non-profit organization was supported by both the Republican and Democratic parties.
In the past months, RNC has made clear that it will withdraw candidates from debates. Earlier this year, the committee sent a letter to the debate commission threatening to leave if the commission didn’t reorganize its format.
Trump complained often that debates were biased against his; 2020 will be the year of Trump’s complaint. he withdrew fromThe second presidential debate with Joe Biden, who was scheduled to be held virtually after Trump had contracted COVID-19, was scheduled to take place. Trump won the first debate. had taken issueChris Wallace, moderator, then a Fox NewsAnchor, and Talked aboutWallace and Biden remained together almost the entire time.
Republicans had complained for years that the debates were biased before Trump. Republicans took issue in 2012 with the fact that a debate moderator corrected Mitt Romney during a debate.
Ironically, the current TV-friendly format of debates is biased towards Republicans and political commentators. We have highlighted. Trump was able to take up too much time during the Wallace-moderated debate, and gave a huge litany of lies a legitimized platform.
Trump used the debates to his advantage. lie about the climate crisis, health care, election fraud, and other issues; although fact checkers — who often carry a right-wing bias at corporate news outlets — had flagged many of Trump’s lies as false, not all viewers follow the fact checkers as they watch.
Left-leaning commentators are long taken issue with the current presidential debate format, which they argue is more about spectacle for cable news audiences than about substantial policy debates — though the current format is still preferable to whatever the GOP could come up with, they say.
