DNC Chair Defends Decision to Not Hold More Debates

‘I’m actually thrilled at the voters across America being able to see the 16 Republican candidates in the food-fight that they’ll engage in tonight’

MITCHELL: “They [Republicans] have had two debates, the Democrats have not had any debates yet. And there's criticism from two of your vice chairs that you are disadvantaging everyone but the presumed front-runner, at least Hillary Clinton, by not agreeing to more Democratic Party sanction debates.”
SCHULTZ: “Well, you know, it's important that our candidates be seen in a wide variety of formats and venues. We have six debates and there will be many other opportunities for our candidates to be seen in candidate forums. And, you know, our initial focus in the early primary states is on making sure that that retail politics can really be robust. And every time a candidate has to engage and get ready for a debate, they have to come off the trail. And that means that they are going to not get as much of an opportunity from the voters to be seen up close and personal. … Good. You know what? I'm actually thrilled at the voters across America being able to see the 16 Republican candidates in the food-fight that they’ll engage in tonight in the doubling down on extremism, alienating immigrants to this country who simply came to make a better way of life for themselves, alienating women by suggesting that we're providing too much health care funding for them and wanting to take away the access to quality Affordable Health Care for all Americans. We're going to have a debate in one month and then we'll have five subsequent debates, about one a month. We have five candidates, Republicans have 16 and they have 9 debates. … So I made a judgment call and I saw input from people who have been involved in developing the schedule in the past. This was a decision that we all thought was best.”

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