President Barack Obama plans to catch the first Democratic debate tonight -- but like many Americans, he may be toggling the television between the five contenders who’d like to replace him in the White House and America’s other pastime, baseball.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama plans to watch the debate, but admitted that he may not watch the entire event.
“There some pretty good playoff baseball on tonight, so I would anticipate that he may be doing a little channel surfing,” Earnest said, adding Obama “welcomes a robust, healthy vigorous debate about the many opportunities and challenges that are facing the country right now.”
Obama hadn’t planned to watch the Republican debates, with Earnest saying at the time he’d look at the highlights, or “the low lights, as I might describe them.”
Though Obama and Hillary Clinton debated “dozens” of times in 2008, Earnest said he hadn’t talked to Obama about any advice he might offer his former Secretary of State.
Obama, he said, would likely tell any contenders that “the person who can most cleanly articulate their values and priorities is typically the candidate that comes away looking the best in these debates.”
Donald Trump has already predicted that tonight’s debate will suffer in comparison to the feisty theatrics of the two Republican contests in which he appeared.
“I think people are going to turn it on for a couple of minutes and then fall asleep,” he said in an interview on Fox & Friends.