Donald Trump said on Monday that the system is being “gamed” ahead of the upcoming presidential debates, likening the situation to legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight working the referees and broaching the possibility of taking on Hillary Clinton with no moderator whatsoever.
“The system is being gamed, because everybody said that I won the so-called forum,” Mr. Trump said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” referring to a recent military forum in which NBC’s Matt Lauer questioned Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in separate, back-to-back segments.
“But they all said I won, and that Matt Lauer was easy on me,” Mr. Trump said. “Well, he wasn’t. I thought he was very professional, I have to be honest. I think he’s been treated very unfairly.”
“What they’re doing is they’re gaming the system so that when I go into the debate, I’m going to … be treated very, very unfairly by the moderators,” he said.
“This is no different than the great Bobby Knight, who I’m a big fan of and he endorsed me, and boy did that mean a lot for Indiana. … I won in a landslide after getting Bobby Knight’s endorsement,” he said.
“Bobby would do numbers on [the] referee and toward the end of the game, they would just sort of … maybe subconsciously they’d give him the calls,” Mr. Trump said. “He was a master at it.”
“Well, they’re doing the same thing now,” he said. “They’re saying about how Matt Lauer was nice. … He wasn’t nice to me. He was tough on me.”
“The fact is that they’re gaming the system and I think maybe we should have no moderator,” Mr. Trump said. “Let Hillary and I sit there and just debate, because I think the system is being rigged. … It’s going to be a very unfair debate, and I can see it happening right now [because] everyone’s saying that he was soft on Trump.”
“Well now, the new person’s going to try and be really hard on Trump just to show the establishment what he can do,” Mr. Trump said. “I think it’s very unfair what they’re doing. So I think we should have a debate with no moderator — just Hillary and I sitting there talking.”
The first presidential debate is scheduled to take place at Hofstra University on Sept. 26 and is to be moderated by NBC’s Lester Holt.
Candidates must meet or surpass a polling threshold of 15 percent to receive an invitation, and Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are virtually assured of getting invites.
Neither Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson nor Green Party nominee Jill Stein have hit double digits in recent surveys from firms that the Commission on Presidential Debates uses in its calculations.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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