Tuesday, October 20, 2020

DONALD TRUMP, RESPECTER OF TRADITIONS

The topics for the upcoming presidential debate have been announced, and the Trump campaign is unhappy.
The president’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, ... claimed that the commission had “promised” that the debate on Thursday would be about foreign policy and asked for it to discard the six subjects announced last week by the moderator, Ms. Welker. (The topics are the coronavirus, climate change, national security, leadership, “American families” and “race in America.”)

In fact, the debate organizers did not announce such a plan to focus on foreign policy, saying that the third debate would mirror the format of the first, with six subjects selected by the moderator. (It is true that in some campaign years, the third presidential debate has focused on foreign policy.)
But focusing on foreign policy in the final debate is a "custom"!
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien penned a letter to the commission Monday raising objections with the topics announced by moderator and NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker last week, saying the commission should observe “long-standing custom” by making foreign policy the central focus of Thursday’s debate....

“As is the long-standing custom, and as has been promised by the Commission on Presidential Debates, we had expected that foreign policy would be the central focus of the October 22 debate. We urge you to recalibrate the topics and return to subjects which had already been confirmed,” Stepien wrote.
Does anyone else think it's hilarious that people representing Donald Trump (a man notorious for stiffing employees and contractors) and the Republican Party (which has trashed every norm in Washington that it found inconvenient, including some that are codified in law) are begging the debate commission to respect "customs" and make good on (alleged, undocumented) promises?

Maybe the whining appeals to the base, which regards Trump as the toughest of tough guys while agreeing wholeheartedly every time the big guy says something that's happening to him is "very unfair." But it's laughable to the rest of us. Stop sniveling and debate, Donnie.

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