On May 17th, Austin’s KVUE TV News interviewed department chair Dr. Kenneth Grasso about the potential cancellation of the September 16th presidential debate at Texas State University sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Despite the fact that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has been organizing these discussions for decades, the campaigns of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump disregarded the commission’s plans – instead announcing two new debates hosted by CNN and ABC News. They are slated to take place on June 27th and September 10th.
Grasso expressed disappointment at the likely cancellation of the Debate at Texas State, noting that it would have been the first time Texas hosted a presidential debate and that the debate would have been “a huge event, huge for the university, huge for the whole area.” The entire Texas State and San Marcos community, he continued, had been tremendously excited about hosting the event. Noting that the CPD “continues to be publicly confident that the debate on our campus will happen as scheduled,” he said that there was still a slim chance that the debate proceeds as scheduled. We’ll just have to wait “to see how this shakes out.”
