White House communications director Alyssa Farah on Wednesday griped about the Commission on Presidential Debates’ cancelation of the second presidential debate, despite the fact that President Trump himself pulled the plug after the CPD announced that it would be virtual due to concerns over his condition following his COVID-19 diagnosis.
Following Trump’s refusal last week to participate in a virtual second presidential debate, a town hall on ABC News with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was announced and scheduled for Thursday night. Earlier Wednesday, NBC News announced it will host a town hall with the President on the same day and time that the former VP will hold his.
During an interview on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Farah reacted to Trump’s upcoming NBC News town hall by pointing fingers at the CPD for making the “huge mistake” of canceling the second presidential debate.
“This was a huge mistake by the debate commission and I mean I think it raises some real questions about if they’re trying to weigh the scales one way or the other in this race,” Farah said. “But listen, by the time that the President does the town hall tomorrow, he’ll have already done three rallies.”
Trump’s issues with the debate were entirely his own making. He flouted COVID-19 mitigation protocols, tested positive for the virus and then refused to participate in a safer debate format.
Farah isn’t the only person in Trump’s orbit who is casting blame on the CPD instead of acknowledging that it was the President who abruptly announced that he wouldn’t participate in a virtual debate even in the midst of a White House COVID-19 outbreak.
On Sunday, Eric Trump launched into a rant about how his father didn’t want to do “a glorified conference call for a presidential debate” and falsely blamed Biden for refusing to “show up,” during an interview on ABC News.
Anchor Jon Karl jumped in to clarify that it was President Trump himself who pulled out of the debate after the CPD said it would be virtual, but Trump’s adult son continued his rant opposing “a glorified conference call.”
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel echoed Trump’s sentiment during an interview with CBS on Sunday as well.
“I think voters are very frustrated by the corrupt debate commission that they would cancel a second debate. I think it feeds into the belief that this 47 years that Joe Biden has in D.C. is again protecting him from facing the voters,” McDaniel said. “And Americans are frustrated that this election commission interfered with our ability to see these two candidates debate.”
After McDaniel went on to accuse Republicans in the nonpartisan CPD as “not non-partisan,” the RNC chair nonsensically argued that the cancelation of the second presidential debate “was done unilaterally without talking to the candidates” and that the commission “interfered in the election.”
“It is corrupt. It is what D.C. is. They are in the pocket of Joe Biden, and they prevented the American public from seeing these candidates debate,” McDaniel said. “And it’s wrong for the country.”
Watch Farah’s remarks below:
White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah says it was a “huge mistake” to cancel the second presidential debate, which Trump pulled out of before its cancelation pic.twitter.com/CHURWFdEek
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 14, 2020
