Donald Trump on Presidential Debates: Drop the Moderators, 'Just Hillary and I Sitting There Talking'

Donald Trump on Monday said that there is only one way the presidential debates against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton can be fair in his eyes: no moderator.

"I think maybe we should have no moderator. Let Hillary and I sit there and just debate, because I think the system is being rigged so it's going to be a very unfair debate," Trump said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"I think we should have a debate with no moderator, just Hillary and I sitting there talking," he said.

Trump referred to last week's NBC commander-in-chief forum moderated by Matt Lauer, whose performance was widely criticized for, among other reasons, being too easy on the Republican nominee.

"They all said I won and that Matt Lauer was easy on me," said Trump. "Well, he wasn't. I thought he was very professional, I have to be honest. I think he's been treated very unfairly."

By Trump's logic, that means the moderators of the presidential debates will have it in for him.

"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," Trump said.

He added: "I can see it happening right now because everyone's saying that he was soft on Trump. Well, now the new person’s gonna try to be really hard on Trump just to show, you know, the establishment what he can do. So I think it’s very unfair what they’re doing."

Earlier this month, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced Lester Holt, Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace as the lineup to moderate this year's presidential debates.

Holt, the anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," will moderate the first debate on Sept. 26; Raddatz of ABC News and Cooper of CNN will moderate the town hall debate on Oct. 9; and Wallace of Fox News will moderate the Oct. 19 debate.

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano will moderate the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 4, and Steve Scully, senior executive producer, White House and political editor for C-SPAN Networks, will serve as backup moderator for all the debates.

The full debate lineup, via the CPD:

• First presidential debate, Sept. 26: Lester Holt, Anchor, NBC Nightly NewsMonday, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
• Vice presidential debate, Oct. 4: Elaine Quijano, Anchor, CBSN and Correspondent, CBS NewsTuesday, Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia
• Second presidential debate (town meeting), Oct. 9: Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and Co-Anchor of "This Week," ABC Anderson Cooper, Anchor, CNNSunday, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
• Third presidential debate, Oct. 19: Chris Wallace, Anchor, Fox News SundayWednesday, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons