#Trump campaign requests presidential debates be moved to early September

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President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden
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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s campaign has formally requested a presidential debate be moved to the first week of September, and that another debate be added to the schedule, as they try to get ahead of early voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump’s personal attorney and former Big Apple mayor Rudy Giuliani made the request in a letter sent Wednesday to the Commission on Presidential Debates where he called the current timetable “an outdated dinosaur,” according to a report by Axios.

“By the time of the first presidential debate on September 29, 2020, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, as many as eight million Americans in 16 states will have already started voting,” Giuliani wrote in the letter obtained by the publication.

“And by the time of the third and final presidential debate on October 22, 2020 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, as many as 49 million Americans in 34 states will have already started voting,” he continued.

The Trump campaign also requested an additional fourth debate to the three which have already been agreed upon by the candidates.

If the commission refuses that request, the Trump campaign asked that the final Oct. 22 debate between Trump and Joe Biden be moved to the first week of September before the North Carolina begins sending in the first ballots on Sept. 4.

The request comes as the coronavirus pandemic continues to upend the 2020 election race, with Trump and Biden no longer traveling to their respective conventions to accept their parties’ nomination.

“For a nation already deprived of a traditional campaign schedule because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, it makes no sense to also deprive so many Americans of the opportunity to see and hear the two competing visions for our country’s future before millions of votes have been cast,” Giuliani argued.

The attorney also provided a list of suggested speakers to moderate the debates, including New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin and Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Harris Faulkner, among others.