Are New Presidential Debate Rules Coming? By Kyle N

     After a chaotic and surprising first 2020 Presidential Debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Commission on Presidential Debates has stated they are "carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly". Commission on Presidential Debates - Wikipedia

    The Commision on Presidential Debates is nonprofit corporation jointly sponsored by the Democratic and Republican parties. The Commision has organized every Presidential Debates since 1988. 


    The most recent debate, held on October 29, 2020, was moderated by Chris Wallace. Despite both candidates agreeing beforehand to follow the debate rules of 2 minute uninterrupted speaking time per candidate per question, the 90 minute debate saw frequent interruptions and refusals to listen to Wallace. 

    With a Vice Presidential debate and two more Presidential debates planned before the November 3 election, the Commision has been looking into multiple different options to better civilize the debates. One of these options would be controlling the candidates microphones. For example, during the 2 minutes allocated for question answering, the non-answering candidate's microphone could be intentionally muted if necessary. This would remove the frequent interruptions seen in the first debate, and allow the candidates to better explain their views and positions on important topics. 

    The Second 2020 Presidential Debate will take place on October 15 from Miami, Florida. This means the Commision will have to act quick to create new rules and get them approved by the candidates. It is unclear at this point if these eventual new rules will also apply to the October 7 Vice Presidential debate, just one week away. 



Sources:

https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commission-on-presidential-debates-changes-coming-next-debate/

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/presidential-debate-coverage-fact-check-09-29-20/index.html

Comments

  1. I'm interested to see what the new rules are. This was embarrassing to watch.

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