The Commission on Presidential Debates attacked President Joe Biden's campaign Monday, days ahead of a planned CNN debate between the president and former President Donald Trump.
The group said that due to the Biden campaign, they're "regrettably" releasing the colleges and universities from contracts.
Texas State University, Lafayette College, Virginia State University and the University of Utah were slated to be the event hosts for presidential debates. Both candidates ignored the commission after they refused to hold debates earlier in the election. At least four states begin early voting Sept. 20. Most others begin in early October. The Commission sought to hold most of the debates in early October.
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In March, the commission's chief, lobbyist and former Republican Party chair, Frank Fahrenkopf, complained that it was all Biden's fault and that the commissioners didn't know what they were talking about.
Biden's team complained that the traditional debates had been nothing more than a rating spectacle, with each side packing the rooms to see which could yell the loudest.
So, Biden's team crafted their own debate rules, worked with news organizations and got Trump to agree to the rules.
Just a few days ahead of the debate, Fahrenkopf released a statement blaming Biden for the universities losing the contracts on the big events.
“Given the letter dated May 15, 2024 from Jen O’Malley Dillon, Campaign Chair for the Biden-Harris Campaign, in which the Biden-Harris Campaign informed the Commission that President Biden will not agree to debate under the sponsorship of the Commission during the 2024 general election campaign, it is unfair to ask the four campuses to continue to prepare for their debates, as they have been doing since their November, 2023 selection. We are grateful to the sites, and we are sorry to come to this decision," co-chairs Antonia Hernández and Fahrenkopf penned in a run-on statement.
They didn't explain why the commission didn't release the schools on May 15 when the campaign told them about their intentions.
Instead, they accused the Biden campaign of hurting students who would have had the "opportunity to participate in these historic voter education forums.”
None of the four universities are in states expected to be battlegrounds. Three of the four are red states. Virginia was won by Biden in 2020 by 10 points.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misstated that the debate commission leans Republican. It is a bipartisan body.
