America just wants a MUTE button.
The Commission on Presidential Debates vowed Wednesday to install unspecified new rules to keep the face-offs under some semblance of control after President Donald Trump went off the rails in the first clash with Joe Biden.
“Additional structure should be added to future debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of issues,” the commission said in a statement Wednesday.
The commission did not elaborate on what measures it might impose on the candidates or how it might enforce them.
Trump interrupted Biden dozens of times and refused to obey repeated admonitions by moderator Chris Wallace to respect the rules. Biden was also guilty of a few improper interjections.
It’s not clear why moderators don’t have control over candidates’ microphones or the power to switch them off during periods of the debate when the other candidate is supposed to be giving “uninterrupted statements.”
The next presidential debate is a town hall set for Oct. 15, a format that might keep Trump more in check.
Even the bombastic president finds it difficult to cut off or interrupt actual voters. Some undecided voters harshly slapped him down when he tried to do so at a recent Fox News town hall that did not include Biden.
The commission praised Wallace for seeking to maintain control over the debate. The clash degenerated into an unwatchable trash-talking contest with Biden getting in a few uninterrupted pleas to voters to send Trump packing on Election Day.
On the day after, Biden said anyone who was shocked by Trump’s outbursts hasn’t been paying attention for the past four years.
“It was just a national embarrassment,” said the former vice president, who mounted a whistle-stop train tour of blue-collar Ohio and western Pennsylvania. “I just hope that the American people and those undecided voters try to determine what each of us has as an answer for their concerns and allows us to actually speak.”
Trump improbably claimed that he won the debate even though he suggested Wallace sided with Biden.
“Chris had a very tough night,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
