Hillary Clinton’s campaign is trying to set expectations for the first presidential debate by going to the press with concerns about the moderators going easy on GOP nominee Donald Trump.
“[P]eople accommodate their questions and lower the bar of their questions to suit the candidate in front of them,” Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, told reporters Wednesday, adding it is her “biggest concern” for the first presidential showdown.
“That’s what’s happened with Trump in the past,” Clinton said.
Clinton and Trump will face-off at Hofstra University in New York on Sept. 26 for the first debate of the 2016 presidential election.
Palmieri said Wednesday the Democratic nominee’s campaign is concerned the moderators will, “ask Hillary Clinton a set of much harder questions and they ask him a set of easier questions because he has not put forward detailed material which you can … question him on.”
“And so he ends up getting much one-dimensional, simple questions,” she told a gaggle of campaign reporters. “That is our concern.”
Palmieri said, “I think the moderators need to ask substantive questions, factual questions, and … keep them on an even playing field.”
Her team first started complaining about treatment from moderators earlier this month following a forum hosted by NBC News’ Matt Lauer. Clinton’s campaign was so unhappy with Lauer’s handling of the event, in fact, that they turned the entire incident into a fundraising email.
“The worst part is, there’s nothing new about this happening. We all know that Trump lies a lot,” wrote deputy communications director Christina Reynolds.
“And we all know that many outlets in the press apparently lack the wherewithal to call him out – and help voters understand that what they’re hearing from Trump isn’t just normal political talk, but an unprecedented descent into unqualified nonsense from a major-party presidential nominee,” she wrote.
The Clinton campaign’s efforts to ensure a more favorable debate experience aren’t limited to just staffers going to the press with concerns.
Pro-Clinton activists Peter Daou and David Brock and their joint venture, Shareblue, have also been working overtime spamming reporters with complaints about the press’ supposed mistreatment of the Democratic nominee.
“Shareblue’s bread-and-butter content is exposing what it considers to be news coverage stacked against Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Daou was particularly excited about a project seeking to show that Mrs. Clinton’s email travails had been in the news every day since the story originally broke in March 2015,” the New York Times reported.
“Often, their editorial direction seems in sync with the Clinton campaign, which has instructed its surrogates to blame news coverage for negative press. ‘Are they going to hold Hillary to a different standard again?’ read one recent ‘talking points’ memo sent by the campaign to its surrogates,” the repot added.
Shareblue is focusing now on whether Clinton will be treated fairly at the upcoming presidential debates.
The group, “has already published a piece calling on moderators to fact-check Mr. Trump on the spot, and will continue through debate night, whipping up support online with the hashtag #DemandFairDebates,” the Times reported.
Palmieri stressed Wednesday that Clinton is “preparing,” not “practicing,” for the debate.
In preparation for Clinton’s first big showdown with the GOP nominee, she is reportedly practicing on two different versions of Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“We are not sure which Donald Trump is going to show up,” Palmieri said, noting Clinton’s prep is different from anything she has tried in the past.
Trump may be extra confrontational during Sept. 26’s debate, or he may play it cool, she said.
“This makes it hard to game out,” Palmieri said.
