After a threat for a competing presidential debate by a New Hampshire newspaper, Fox News has announced it will add a debate for second-tier candidates who did not meet the criteria for its prime-time debate.
According to the
National Journal, Fox will now host a 90-minute televised forum in Cleveland during the afternoon of Aug. 6 in advance of the evening debate.
The change came after the New Hampshire Union-Leader published a story announcing it would host a debate on Aug. 6 for candidates who did not qualify for the single debate Fox had planned to host.
Fox initially announced that it would host
one debate limited to the ten candidates who ranked in the top ten in an average of recent national polls. The
format was criticized by pundits for being unfair, potentially excluding candidates prematurely and overemphasizing name ID.
Union-Leader publisher Joe McQuaid said that Fox's plans for the first debate "isn't just bad for New Hampshire; it's bad for the presidential selection process by limiting the field to only the best-known few with the biggest bankrolls," the Journal reported.
But in offering a platform for second-tier candidates, the newspaper appeared to be tempting candidates to flout rules established by the Republican National Committee (RNC), warning that candidates who participate in a non-sanctioned debate will lose their eligibility to participate in any debates sponsored by the party.
The Union-Leader did not specify the format of its debate but confirmed that it would host any candidate polling at or above 1 percent, and that the event would be nationally televised by C-SPAN, the Journal reported.
"It sounds like a debate to me," Steve Duprey, the New Hampshire RNC committeeman, told the Journal when asked to comment on the Union-Leader arrangement.
In the interim, Duprey told the Journal that he talked with RNC spokesman and chief strategist Sean Spicer, who was in touch with the Union-Leader. According to Duprey, RNC officials were assured that the second-tier candidates would appear on stage one at a time to give individual speeches rather than interacting with one another with a moderator, so as to comply with RNC rules.
After publishing the story, the National Journal was then contacted by McQuaid disputing what Duprey had said.
"[Y]our report about our newspaper having only one candidate at a time is false," McQuaid told the Journal. "Whoever fed you that is full of B.S."
When asked whether the forum would have multiple candidates on stage at the same time, he said, "Yes."
Shortly thereafter, Spicer sent out a statement from Fox announcing that the network would hold its own "forum" on Aug. 6.
The Journal said that it's unclear whether the Union-Leader would move ahead with its plans to host a debate, and the newspaper did not comment on Fox's announcement.
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