Trump Approves of the Presidential Debate Moderators

The upcoming presidential debates will be moderated by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, NBC’s Lester Holt, CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Martha Raddatz.

This diverse group is made up of two women, two nonwhite journalists and an openly gay man.  

“Part of what makes the group so exciting is a sense of turnover. None of these moderators are exactly millennials—and nor should they be, given the level of public trust and sheer broadcasting experience it takes to credibly pull a gig like this off. But they’re all new to the general-election debate game, except for Raddatz, who stood out as a breakout star moderating the Joe Biden-Paul Ryan vice presidential debate with sharp knowledge and attention to detail in 2012,” writes Time.

Holt will be moderating the first debate on September 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York; Raddatz and Cooper will be co-moderating the second town-hall styled debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9th; and Wallace will be moderating the final debate at University of Nevada in Las Vegas on October 19.

Each debate will be an hour and a half starting at 9 pm Eastern Time without commercial breaks and Steve Scully, the senior executive producer and editor at C-SPAN will be a backup moderator for all debates.

The vice president debate, moderated by Elaine Quijano of CBS News, will be on October 4 at at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has been responsible for all the presidential and vice presidential debates since the 1988 campaign.  

“These journalists bring extensive experience to the job of moderating, and understand the importance of using expanded time periods effectively,” said Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry, commission co-chairs in a statement. “We are grateful for their willingness to moderate, and confident that the public will learn more about the candidates and the issues as a result.” 

The committee took longer than usual when selecting the moderators in an effort to make sure there wasn’t any moderators who were particularly bias. 

Trump had previously agreed to do the debates, but had said he wanted to make sure to negotiate the terms to make sure they were fair.  

“I’ll have to see who the moderators are. Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely,” said Trump to Time prior to the the moderators being announced. “I did very well in the debates on the primaries. According to the polls, I won all of them. So I look forward to the debates. But, yeah, I want to have fair moderators … I will demand fair moderators.” 

To prepare for the three debates, he has been prepping everyday according to his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. 

Trump stated he was pleased with the moderator selection. “I like them. I respect the moderators. I do respect them. It’s interesting,” said Trump.

Although the moderators mostly have a liberal slant, they are known for their fair reputation. Not to mention, the last debate has a conservative moderator, so Trump will hopefully end things off strong.  

Prior to the debates, NBC’s Matt Lauer will be moderating the NBC News/MSNBC Commander-in-Chief Forum with Trump and Clinton Wednesday. This isn’t a debate, but it will be the first time the candidates will share the same stage in the general election.   

In the forum, Clinton and Trump will be asked questions from the audience pertaining to the topic of national security and military affairs. It will be airing on NBC, MSNBC and NBCNews.com at 8 pm Eastern Time.