Left-wing U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are set to kick off a new televised debate series called “The Senate Project” this month.
Sanders, an independent democratic socialist, and Graham, a sometime Republican ally of former President Donald Trump, are scheduled to square off at noon Eastern Daylight Time on Monday, June 13 in an Oxford-style debate moderated by Fox News anchor Bret Baier. The Bipartisan Policy Center — which is co-sponsoring the event alongside the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute — announced last week.
“The genesis was a number of organizations were having these conversations kind of separately and amongst ourselves,” Bipartisan Policy Center president Jason Grumet toldThe Hill, referring to discussions among the three sponsors about how to rekindle productive debate in Washington, which has diminished as use of the 60-vote filibuster has skyrocketed.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) “was the catalyst,” said Grumet. “He is on the board of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. He is also one of the founders of BPC. We’ve all been lamenting the loss of the constructive collision of ideas that has long been the basis of effective democracy.”
The one-hour event featuring Sanders and Graham, the first of three debates between various pairs of leading senators, is set to take place in Boston at the Kennedy Institute, which includes a full-size replica of the U.S. Senate that is typically used by visiting students to simulate part of the legislative process. Topics will be announced one week before the event, which is to be streamed by Fox Nation.
Bipartisan Policy Center plans to host a second debate between a Democratic and a Republican senator in July at George Washington University, with live coverage provided by C-SPAN.
A third debate is scheduled to be held by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation this fall in Utah.
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