October 1, 2020
![Photograph by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/32277d_2627926c2fc640aea4b64d7fb467db65~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_49,h_32,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/32277d_2627926c2fc640aea4b64d7fb467db65~mv2.png)
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a rule change announced on Thursday, the Commission on Presidential Debates said that Donald J. Trump will not be permitted to attend the second debate.
“We took a look at the first debate and decided that we needed to tweak the format a bit,” Harland Dorrinson, a spokesperson for the commission, said. “We think this rule change fixes everything.”
Anticipating criticism that a debate must have at least two participants, the spokesperson said, “There will be, if you count the moderator.”
To enforce the rule change, the commission will post a photo of Trump at security, but Dorrinson said that he hoped that such a measure would not be necessary.
“If President Trump is listening, we are asking him to stand back, but don’t stand by,” he said.
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Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.