Notre Dame won’t host Sept. 29 presidential debate; venue moves to Ohio cruxnow.com

The University of Notre Dame has withdrawn as the host site for the first presidential debate, with its president saying the health precautions required because of COVID-19 “would have greatly diminished the educational value” of having the debate on campus.

The Sept. 29 debate will now take place at the Health Education Campus in Cleveland and will be co-hosted by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, according to the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. It will be the first of three presidential debates between President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“Regrettably, I have decided to withdraw the University as the host site,” Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, said in a July 27 statement.