To remind voters who they favor, the Commission on Presidential Debates will mute President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden during the two-minute response times at the upcoming Thursday night debate in Nashville. They hope by doing that Joe Biden will be able to lie through his teeth and not pay a rhetorical price.

The biased commission said in a statement that it “had determined that it is appropriate to adopt measures intended to promote adherence to agreed-upon rules and inappropriate to make changes to those rules.” Then why are they changing the rules now?

Granted, also in the debate will be a discussion period that won’t have a mute option. As usual, Thursday’s debate will consist of six 15-minute segments, totaling 90 minutes in all. Also as usual, the debate moderator will be a vicious Democrat partisan who will cheat for Joe Biden and mute the president at her whim or whenever he seems to be saying anything that could hurt Biden.

Perhaps also expect a self-righteous speech from Kristen Welker sometime during the debate, where she admonishes the president for any number of make believe offenses. After such she will be lionized by her colleagues and Democrats.

What they NEED is a mute button for the moderators!

— Chad Prather (@WatchChad) October 20, 2020

The Trump campaign is not happy with the mute option, “President Trump is committed to debating Joe Biden regardless of last minute rule changes from the biased commission in their latest attempt to provide advantage to their favored candidate,” said campaign manager Bill Stepien. He also accused the commission of allowing “pro-Biden antics” with its choice of topics.

Ali Pardo, Deputy Communications Director for the Trump campaign, told media that “[o]ver the past several months, the CPD [Commission on Presidential Debates] verbally confirmed on multiple occasions that the third debate would have a foreign policy focus.” But knowing Biden is weak on it, they now change it.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, previously said, “Maybe we should give the moderator a mute button, given how President Trump just interrupts at will. And the bottom line is Donald Trump doesn’t follow the rules [and] the commission has got to get a lot tougher.” And lo and behold, now there is a mute button. What a coincidence.

“The campaigns and the Commission agreed months ago that the debate moderator would choose the topics,” said Biden National Press Secretary TJ Ducklo. “The Trump campaign is lying about that now because Donald Trump is afraid to face more questions about his disastrous COVID response. As usual, the president is more concerned with the rules of a debate than he is getting a nation in crisis the help it needs.” Ducklo ignores the previous commitment to making the last debate about foreign policy. Of course he did. He knows his own man would suffer if his campaign played by the rules.

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, said a mute button gave the moderator too much power over the discussion, “If you are going to run for the free leader of this world we want to hear what you have to say, but now we’re going to allow one person to moderate it to determine what the American people can hear from our candidates?”

This piece was written by David Kamioner on October 20, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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