The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced on Wednesday that it would seek to make changes to the format of future debates in this year’s election cycle in response to the chaos that took place in Tuesday night’s debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden.
Trump constantly spoke over both Biden and moderator Chris Wallace during the debate. At one point, as Wallace tried to rein Trump in, the president complained that he was also being interrupted by Biden at times.
“Frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting than he has,” Wallace said in response.
The disorderly nature of Tuesday night’s debate prompted many to dub it the worst debate in United States history.
In response, the CPD said it would try to change how the remaining debates this season are handled in order to provide for a more structured conversation between the two candidates.
“Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues,” the CPD said in a statement, adding that it would “carefully” consider changes that should come about, announcing them in the near future.
While the CPD has the ability to propose changes to future debates, any alterations they make to their structure would require an agreement from both the Trump and Biden campaigns before they can be implemented.
Biden appeared to welcome the promise for changes while speaking to reporters on Wednesday about the debate. “I just hope there’s a way in which the debate commission can control the ability of us to answer the question without interruption,” he said.
The president, however, responded to the proposed call for changes in a way that mirrored his demeanor toward Biden and Wallace throughout the debate Tuesday night.
“Try getting a new Anchor and a smarter Democrat candidate!” he tweeted out on Wednesday.
The next debate between Trump and Biden will take place on October 15 in Miami, Florida. It will be moderated by C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully, and will have a town hall-style format, with undecided voters posing questions for each candidate to answer.
When discussing that debate’s format, Biden said he hoped that participants would get to have their questions answered in a proper way.
“I hope we’re able to get a chance to actually answer the questions that are asked by the persons in the room. But God only knows what he’ll do,” Biden said of Trump.
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