Fox News' Chris Wallace will moderate first presidential debate and be followed by C-Span's Steve Scully and NBC's Kristen Welker - but Donald Trump's campaign claim some are 'clear opponents' who will be Joe Biden 'teammates'

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will moderate the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it was announced Wednesday - despite the president's history of repeated attacks against the host.

Each of the debates will be moderated by a single reporter, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced – the second will be moderated by NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker and the third by senior executive producer and political editor at C-SPAN Steve Scully.

Trump's campaign said some of the reporters included in the line-up will serve as 'teammates' to Biden during the debates and are already 'clear opponents' of the president.

Although a Fox News personality did make it into the lineup, Wallace is one of the only registered Democrat hosts on the right-leaning news network - although Wallace has said that it is the only way he can participate in the political process in Washington D.C., a heavily Democratic city.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Wallace, comparing him unfavorably to his father Mike Wallace, and accusing him of going after Republicans and going easy on Democrats - something Wallace has pushed back against strongly. 

Trump's campaign team was quick to jump on the moderator selection. 

'These are not the moderators we would have recommended if the campaign had been allowed to have any input,' Trump campaign's communication director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement Wednesday.

'Some can be identified as clear opponents of Donald Trump,' he continued, 'meaning Joe Biden will actually have a teammate on the stage most of the time to help him excuse the radical, leftist agenda he is carrying.' 

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Fox News host Chris Wallace will moderate the first presidential debate

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The moderator for the second debate is NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker (left) and the third night will be moderated by C-SPAN senior executive producer Steve Sully (right)

'One thing is sure: Chris Wallace's selection ensures that Biden will finally see him face-to-face after dodging his interview requests. That is, if Biden actually shows up,' Murtaugh concluded. 

The sole vice presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and California Senator Kamala Harris, which will take place between the first and second presidential debate, will be moderated by USA Today's Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page. 

The bipartisan commission on presidential debates announced Wednesday that Wallace will moderate the first presidential debate of 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio at Case Western Reserve University on September 29.

The second, moderated by Welker, will be held in Miami, Florida at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on October 15. Sully will moderate the third debate on October 22, just 12 days before Election Day, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Notably, Trump and Wallace clashed during the president's most recent one-on-one interview with the Fox News host last month.

Wallace brought into question the cognitive test Trump often flouts to back up that he's more mentally able to be president than Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

'Biden can't put two sentences together,' Trump asserted at the time, claiming the former vice president is mentally unfit to serve in the Oval Office.

'Well, I'll tell you what, let's take a test,' Trump posed a challenge to Biden. 'Let's take a test right now. Let's go down, Joe and I will take a test. Let him take the same test that I took.'

'Incidentally, I took the test too when I heard that you passed it,' Wallace revealed to Trump on-camera during the interview at the White House.

'Yeah, how did you do?' Trump asked.

'It's not – well it's not the hardest test,' Wallace said.

'They have a picture and it says 'what's that' and it's an elephant,' he continued, in an apparent mocking of the president. 

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Trump and Wallace had an awkward interaction during the most recent one-on-one last month where the Fox News host said the cognitive test Trump often touts as a representation of his mental fitness is 'not the hardest test'

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In April, Trump also lashed out at Wallace in claiming he is a 'wannabe' of his late father Mike Wallace, who was one of the original correspondents for CBS' 60 Minutes

'No no no. You see, that's all misrepresentation,' the president said of the version of the cognitive test that's available online.

'Yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions,' Trump said of the test.

'Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven,' Wallace continued, adding the first answer: 'Ninety-three.'

'You couldn't answer many of the questions,' Trump said of the Fox News host.

'Ok, what's the question?' he challenged.

'I'll get you the test, I'd like to give it,' the president continued. 'I'll guarantee you that Joe Biden could not answer those questions.'

'OK,' Wallace let up.

'I answered all 35 questions correctly,' the president touted again.

Trump also lashed out at Wallace a few months earlier in a tweet where he said he was a 'wannabe' Mike Wallace, who is the Fox News host's late father and journalist who was one of the original correspondents for CBS' 60 Minutes. 

'Just watched Mike Wallace wannabe, Chris Wallace, on @FoxNews. I am now convinced that he is even worse than Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Meet the Press(please!), or the people over at Deface the Nation,' Trump tweeted in April, deploying his nicknames for NBC host Chuck Todd and for the CBS show 'Face the Nation.'

'What the hell is happening to @FoxNews. It's a whole new ballgame over there!' Trump posted at the time of his once favorite television news network. 

Trump's attorney and the former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates earlier this month, including a request to move the first debate to earlier in September and a list of requested moderators.

'Our campaign again requests the Commission modernize its line-up to include an additional, earlier debate in September, bringing the total number of presidential debates to four,' Giuliani wrote.

The president and his staff have lamented that the first debate is too late in the campaign due to the increased amount of mail-in ballots that will be sent this year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

North Carolina is the first state that will begin mailing in ballots the first week of September.

Giuliani included a list of 24 journalists the campaign 'suggested' should be considered as potential moderators.

Among the two-dozen strong list were Fox News' Bret Baier, Maria Bartiromo, Harris Faulkner and Bill Hemmer.