WASHINGTON _ Donald Trump's supporters are now citing one more reason they believe the presidential debates are rigged against him: seating arrangements.
A plan by the Trump campaign to seriously rattle Hillary Clinton was thwarted at the last minute, when the Commission on Presidential Debates warned campaign officials not to seat some of Trump's guests in the candidate's family box, as first reported by the Washington Post.
But these were no ordinary guests. These were three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting them, and a fourth who charges Hillary Clinton with callously defending in court the man accused of raping her as a child. Trump adviser Rudolph Giuliani told the Post the seating plan was designed to make a scene.
The Trump campaign, Giuliani said, was hoping to see the women confront Bill Clinton as both he and they were escorted to their respective boxes minutes before the debate. The top advisers involved in the plotting had kept their plan a secret from even others in the campaign until the last possible moment. But before it could be carried out, the commission intervened. Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., the co-chair of the commission and a Republican, warned the Trump campaign that if the women were seated in the family box, they would be removed by security.
The Trump campaign blinked. "We weren't going to have a fight on national TV with the commission to start the debate," Giuliani told the Post.
The four women were moved to general seating, where their presence created a spectacle, but not nearly as big a one as a confrontation with the former president would have produced.
Now, Trump supporters are complaining of unfair treatment. They note that Clinton was allowed to seat billionaire and Trump antagonist Mark Cuban in the front row during the first debate, prompting the GOP nominee to express extreme irritation. Trump had threatened to bring the Clinton accusers to that event once Cuban boasted of his front-row seat, but he held off until the next match-up.
But Trump was not alone in having the seating plans for his VIP box upended by the commission on Sunday night, at a debate where the intimate "town hall" format created more possibility for disruption than at the earlier event. Just before Trump's guests were booted from his box, the Clinton campaign was told to find another seat for Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of Clinton's top surrogates. The boxes were to be reserved for family only, both campaigns were told.
