Analysis: The debate rules aren’t the problem. Donald Trump is.
Which, given the raft of negative coverage of the debate, the commission that organizes the three presidential (and one vice presidential) debates every four years probably felt compelled to say. The statement is the CPD saying, Hey we know there’s a problem and we are going to fix it!
Spoiler alert: They won’t.
Because the problem wasn’t, really, the rules of the first debate. It was President Donald Trump — and his utter refusal to follow the rules his campaign had previously agreed on or, if we are being honest, any rules at all.
Remember that this debate did actually have rules. Moderator Chris Wallace would introduce a topic and ask a question. Each candidate would have two uninterrupted minutes to answer. Then the other candidate would have his two minutes. Then a general conversation, guided by Wallace, would ensue.
THE POINT — NOW ON YOUTUBE!
In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Click to subscribe!
Those rules were fine! The goal was to allow each candidate to have their say while also ensuring that they could get into an honest exchange of ideas as opposed to just repeating talking points without ever being challenged by the moderator or their opponent.
The problem is that Trump doesn’t care about the rules — or whether they were carefully negotiated by his campaign. He does whatever the hell he wants. He thinks he is entitled to that — that he is special. That the rules, quite literally, don’t apply to him.
So what we had on Tuesday night was two people — former Vice President Joe Biden and Wallace — attempting to play by the agreed-upon rules and one, in Trump, who purposely flouted those rules at every moment he could.
Think of it this way: You are playing tennis. You are following the rules. The umpire is following the rules. But your opponent refuses to keep score, pronounces that he has won every point, takes out some scissors and cuts down the net and then runs and punches you in the gut.
Is the solution the next time that you play him to a) make sure there are more rules and b) make sure he knows the rules? OF COURSE NOT.
But the CPD can make as many rules as it likes in an attempt to make the debates of some use to the public, and it won’t change this fundamental fact: The President of the United States has zero interest in engaging in a substantive conversation about his first term and his differences with Biden.
The Biden campaign’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, told CNN that Biden will be “focused on answering questions from the voters” in Miami, “under whatever set of rules the Commission develops to try to contain Donald Trump’s behavior. The President will have to choose between responding to voters about questions for which he has offered no answers in this campaign — or repeating last night’s unhinged meltdown.”
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh put it this way: “They’re only doing this because their guy got pummeled last night. President Trump was the dominant force and now Joe Biden is trying to work the refs.”
Trump’s default setting is chaos, and he believes that by creating it he can “win.” There are no rules that can be made to prevail in that case.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this analysis.
