In just over a week, Frank Fahrenkopf will be another member of the television audience watching Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in this year's first presidential debate.
He's not happy about that.
In 1987, Fahrenkopf, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, helped found the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized and monitored more than three decades of presidential and vice-presidential matchups.
This year, the Biden and Trump campaigns struck out on their own and hosted two debates, the first on June 27 offering citizens an unusual addition to the usual summer fun and frivolity.
The result remains to be seen.
“Both campaigns have decided to take care of what really belongs to the American people,” said Fahrenkopf, noting that the commission had done excellent work on behalf of voters before Biden and Trump, partnering with television networks concerned about the ratings and prestige. He decided to go freelance and create his own schedule and debate format.
All very well. Debating is better than not debating.
But speaking this week from her summer home in Nantucket, Massachusetts, Fahrenkopf expressed reservations about the terms agreed upon — including how a mute button will be enforced — and the lack of direct voter involvement in the two scheduled showdowns between Biden and Trump. .
Their inclination is to wait and see. If the initial delivery turns into another dumpster fire on top of a manure pile, like the first presidential debate in 2020, the commission is ready to intervene with a three-session schedule scheduled for the fall, along with a vice presidential meeting. debate.
“They can say no, and that's their prerogative,” Fahrenkopf said of the president and his potential successor.
But the offer is there.
The commission was founded nearly 40 years ago by Democrats and Republicans seeking to end the brinkmanship and tedious debate over debates that had become a regular part of the presidential campaign.
“It was a back-and-forth” and it was always in doubt whether the candidates would share the stage, said Fahrenkopf, who rose through the ranks of Nevada politics before becoming national chairman of the Republican Party under Reagan.
The commission has faced plenty of criticism over the decades, often from candidates who stumbled under the bright lights and wanted someone to blame. But after several election cycles without debates, face-to-face meetings between leading candidates have become a staple of the fall campaign and something voters have come to rely on. Tens of millions tune in.
Biden and Trump had their own grievances with the commission and the 2020 debates, which took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden did not like that Trump and his entourage took off their masks after entering the debate room. (“What the hell was he going to do?” Fahrenkopf asked, not without reason.) Trump had all kinds of complaints, including the composition of the commission, which was mainly made up of Washington.
But those complaints aside, the two had other reasons for reaching a side deal this time and snubbing the commission and its fall schedule.
Biden was eager to dispel suggestions that his campaign was stalling, while Trump was eager to debate early and often with a rival he sees as in sharp physical and mental decline.
Frank Fahrenkopf, left on a 2020 debate stage, is disappointed that the presumptive Republican and Democratic candidates are setting their own terms for two debates this year, bypassing the nonpartisan commission he co-chairs.
(Chip Somodevilla/Associated Press)
Fahrenkopf diplomatically did not criticize the terms of the June 27 debate presented by the CNN host and accepted by the two candidates. (A second debate is scheduled for Sept. 10 on ABC, and CBS plans a meeting of vice presidential candidates at a date to be determined. The participation of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his running mate remains on the agenda. air.)
Fahrenkopf questioned how the mute button will work. In 2020, after Trump repeatedly blustered and talked about Biden during his first debate: “Will you shut up, man?” Biden exploded in a moment: The commission instituted a rule that each candidate would have two minutes without interruption at the beginning of each 15-minute topical segment. Both men followed the rule.
Instead, microphones will be muted throughout the CNN debate, except when a candidate is given their turn to speak.
“Our view is that this is supposed to be a debate,” Fahrenkopf said. “It's not just the answers [candidates are] give regarding issues that are important to voters. …People who are watching on television. [also] Gain insight into a candidate's character. How he behaves, whether he obeys the rules. If they are polite.”
Fahrenkopf said his biggest disappointment with the deal Biden and Trump struck is the absence of a town hall format, in which voters in the studio audience have the opportunity to directly question the candidates. It was, he said, one of the commission's most popular innovations.
Sooner or later, Fahrenkopf and his nine fellow commissioners will have to decide whether to cancel four planned debates and disappoint the schools (Texas State University, Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Virginia State University and the University of Utah) that will be the hostesses. .
“There was a lot of participation from students participating” in previous debates, Fahrenkopf said. “Students who were taking special civics classes and so on. “All that disappeared.”
But even if it is a given for Biden and Trump, Fahrenkopf does not see the demise of the debate commission just because the candidates decided to ignore its recommendations and look out for their own interests.
“We will look to the year 2028,” he said. “We've been around for a long time. “So we must be doing something right.”
