In a phone interview with Time magazine Tuesday, Donald Trump said that he will commit to participating in three televised debates before election day, but may attempt to renegotiate on some of the particulars. “I will absolutely do three debates,” the Republican presidential nominee said. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.”
Presidential debate times and locations have been decided by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates since the late 1980s. Last September, the commission announced that presidential debates would take place on September 26 in Hempstead, N.Y., October 9 in St. Louis, and October 19 in Las Vegas. The vice-presidential debate will be October 4 in Farmville, Va. Though the format for each 90-minute debate has already been set, Trump reminded Time that he had successfully negotiated his way into better terms during the GOP primary debates.
“I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember?” Trump said. “They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three and a half hours and I said that’s ridiculous. I’m sure they’ll be open to any suggestions I have, because I think they’ll be very fair suggestions. But I haven’t [seen the conditions] yet. They’re actually presented to me tonight.”
Trump also wants the right to refuse the commissions moderator choices. “I’ll have to see who the moderators are. Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely,” Trump said. “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.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign fired back at Trump in a statement from chairman John Podesta. “Secretary Clinton looks forward to participating in all three presidential debates scheduled by the independent debate commission,” he said. “It is concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates. It is not clear if he is trying to avoid debates, or merely toying with the press to create more drama.”
Podesta continued by saying Clinton isn’t interested in playing games, she simply wants to see if Trump will show up as scheduled on the “date, times, places and formats set by the commission last year through a bipartisan process.” She’s already accepted the invitations.