CNN announced on Thursday that it will host two Republican presidential primary debates in January. I thought we were done with the debates, but no.

The debates in January will take place in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states in the caucus and primary voting season. On January 10, the first debate will take place at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Less than a week later, Iowa caucusgoers will vote on their choice for the Republican nominee in the presidential race. On January 21, the second debate will take place. It is scheduled to happen at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.

The qualifications for these two debates are more stringent than the RNC debates.

To qualify for participation in the Iowa debate, candidates must receive at least 10% in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican or primary voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting, according to the network. One of the three polls must be an approved CNN poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers.

Candidates will be invited to participate in the New Hampshire debate if they receive at least 10% in three separate national and/or New Hampshire polls of Republican primary voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting. One of the three polls must be an approved CNN poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters. Candidates who finish in one of the top three positions in the Iowa caucuses will receive an invitation to participate in the New Hampshire debate.

This is the way to shrink the field down to Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. That match-up is coming anyway. The two strongest GOP candidates to challenge Trump are DeSantis and Nikki Haley. The way to qualify for the CNN debates is through poll results. Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy won’t meet the 10% threshold in three separate CNN-approve polls. One polling company not on the approved list by CNN is Trafalgar, a conservative-leaning company. Trump, DeSantis, and Haley qualify.

The candidates have until January 2 to qualify for the Iowa debate. January 16 is the cut-off in the qualifying period for the debate in New Hampshire.

The Republican National Committee is expected to announce this week that it will release candidates from its requirement that prevents them from participating in non-RNC-sanctioned debates.

I don’t see the names of those who have been chosen to moderate the debates. I’m not sure why Republican candidates want to do a debate on CNN, but here we are.

To further keep the debates going, ABC News announced it will host a pre-New Hampshire GOP primary debate on Jan. 18, three nights before CNN’s planned event. WTH? The closeness of the two debate dates is explained that it is due to the networks scrambling to hold at least one debate.

CNN has its criteria for the debate. ABC News said its debate will be “subject to RNC guidelines.”

ABC News said that it was partnering with WMUR-TV and the New Hampshire Republican State Committee for the event. Chris Ager, the chairman of the GOP committee, said in a statement that the debate will be “subject to RNC guidelines.”

Both ABC News and CNN said that their debates are scheduled to take place at Saint Anselm College.

In the ABC News announcement, representatives from WMUR and Saint Anselm College stressed the long tradition of partnership between the three entities for a pre-New Hampshire primary debate.

To be honest, I was hoping this would be the primary cycle when Republican candidates finally turned down working with the legacy networks and CNN. Why go to hostile territory? The Democrat moderators will deliver DNC talking points to put Republicans on the defensive. Remember how lousy the questions were from the commie Univision anchor during the debate when she read the questions and they were typical Democrat talking points? It does not advance the debate.

Keep the popcorn on hand. You know the debate we want is DeSantis versus Haley. Will Trump participate in the additional debates? Nah. He expects a coronation. The real question will be if Trump is the nominee, will he and Joe Biden agree to debate?