Media call for upcoming debates to be 'canceled,' urge Biden to back out after first brawl with Trump
'There is no reason, not one, that Joe Biden should participate in another debate,' MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A tidal wave from the mainstream media is speculating whether the two remaining debates between President Trump and Joe Biden should even be held after their brutal first showdown Tuesday night in Cleveland.
There appears to be a wide consensus about the messy and ugly nature of the first debate -- which was filled with interruptions and insults. Two more debated are scheduled for Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, with a vice presidential debate set for Oct. 7.
During MSNBC's post-debate coverage, "ReidOut" host Joy Reid questioned her colleague Nicolle Wallace, who has worked on presidential campaigns in the past, if Biden should bother showing up to the next debate.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN CALLS PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE A 'S---SHOW' AND A 'DISGRACE,' BLAMES TRUMP
“If you were Joe Biden’s team, would you do another one?” Reid asked.
Wallace quickly answered that Biden needs to fulfill his commitment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Joe Biden has to go because you don’t stand up to a bully, who is trying to do whatever he’s doing, lift his leg and pee on our democracy, by not showing up and standing up to the bully,” Wallace said. “You stand there because you made a deal and you hold up your end of the deal.”
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer kicked off the network's post-debate coverage by pondering about the future of the Trump-Biden face-offs.
"It will certainly raise a lot of questions ... about the future of presidential debate between these two candidates. I wouldn't be surprised, by the way, if this is the last presidential debate between the president of the United States and the former vice president of the United States," Blitzer said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Several other CNN personalities flirted with the idea of scrapping the scheduled debates.
"Should there be other debates?" CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked. "The vice-presidential debate is next and there's supposed to be two more debates."
MSNBC'S NICOLLE WALLACE: TRUMP'S DEBATE PERFORMANCE 'FELT LIKE AN ASSAULT'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I have to say I don't think the country is going to be yearning for another one of these," CNN analyst David Axelrod responded. "I think Biden has a decision to make."
The liberal magazine The Atlantic ran an op-ed with the headline "Cancel the debates."
"Tonight was the first presidential debate of the 2020 election, and if there is any sense or mercy left in this nation, it will be the last, too," Atlantic staff writer David Graham wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Slate ran a similar piece with the headline "Cancel the Rest of the Debates."
Others took to Twitter to express such a sentiment.
DEBATE GOES OFF THE RAILS AS TRUMP INTERRUPTS, BIDEN BICKERS IN SHOUTFEST
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This is a disgrace, a low point in American debate history. There is no reason, not one, that Joe Biden should participate in another debate," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tweeted.
"No more debates. No more debates," journalist Jose Antonio Vargas repeated.
"Cancel the remaining debates," former MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said. "The debates are now a danger to public safety and a direct threat to Black life. Cancel the debates."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Cancel the rest of the presidential debates. No need to continue legitimizing Nazism, white supremacy, violence and lies," Huffington Post senior reporter Emma Gray said.
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Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.