September 26, 2016 | No Comments
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama will spend Monday night like he does most other Monday nights in the fall, watching TV while he works in the White House residence.
Except instead of Monday Night Football, Earnest said Obama’s TV will be tuned to Monday night’s presidential debate.
“I anticipate that this fall Monday evening will be similar to fall Monday evenings in the White House residence, which is that the president will be working tonight with the television on in the background,” Earnest said at the news briefing. “I think the one difference will be instead of Monday night football, there’ll be a little more politics being discussed in the context of the debate.”
Asked what advice the president might have for his former secretary of state, Earnest reiterated what Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts in an interview last week, that Clinton should be herself and explain to voters her motivations for running for office. Asked what advice the president might have for Trump, Earnest replied that “even if we did, I’m confident it would go unheard.”
The press secretary said he was not aware of any planned phone calls between Obama and Clinton today and added that the two had most recently spoken two weeks ago. Earnest said the president has high expectations for Clinton based on his “experience of going head-to-head with Secretary Clinton in the context of a debate and she performed quite well in those settings,” adding that “I think the president expects her to do the same tonight.”
“This is an important moment in the campaign, and anybody that’s worked on a campaign at any level understands how significant candidate debates are. And it’s an opportunity for the candidates to square off and to speak for themselves in answering questions and describing their experience and their vision and their priorities,” Earnest said. “Look, there hasn’t been a lot of space for that in the context of this presidential election, so this is a rather unique opportunity for that kind of discussion to take place. And I think people are quite interested to tune in and see how the individual candidates handle themselves in this setting.”
Regarding polls showing a tightening presidential race, Earnest said the White House has not been monitoring polls but suggested that a tight campaign might generate increased interest from American voters.
“If reports about tightening polls convince more people to tune into the debate and educate themselves about the positions taken by the individual candidates and impress upon voters the need to be engaged in the political debate in this country, that’s a good thing.”