WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed Wednesday to hold two campaign debates in June and September — the first on June 27, hosted by CNN — setting the stage for the first presidential showdown in just a few weeks. .
The quick agreement on the meeting schedule followed the Democrat’s announcement that he will not participate in the fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organized them for more than three decades. Biden’s campaign proposed instead that media outlets directly organize debates with the presumptive Democratic and Republican candidates, with the first being held in late June and the second in September, before early voting begins. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website, said he was “ready and willing to debate” Biden at the proposed times.
Hours later, Biden said he accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27, adding: “It’s up to you, Donald. Like you said: anywhere, anytime, anywhere.” Trump told Fox News Digital that he accepted the invitation: “I will be there,” he told the channel.
Still, the two sides appeared to have significant differences on key issues about how to organize the debates, including agreement on moderators and rules — some of the same issues that motivated the formation of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987.
The Biden campaign has proposed completely excluding third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the debates. Under debate commission rules, Kennedy or other third-party candidates could qualify if they gain enough ballot access to claim 270 votes. elections and obtained 15% or more in a selection of national polls.
CNN said the debate will be held at its studios in Atlanta and that “no audience will be present.” He said moderators and other details would be announced later. The network kept the door open for Kennedy to participate if he or any other candidate met voting and ballot access requirements similar to those of the commission.
As recently as Wednesday morning, Trump expressed his desire for a large live audience.
“I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, even though Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds — that’s just because he doesn’t understand them,” Trump said. “Just tell me when, I’ll be there.”
Trump has been pushing for more debates and early debates, arguing that voters should be able to see the two men face off well before early voting begins in September. He has repeatedly said he will debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, anywhere,” even proposing that the two men face off outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is currently on criminal trial in a secret case. He has also taunted Biden with an empty pulpit at some of his rallies.
The Biden campaign has long held a grudge against the nonpartisan commission for failing to uniformly apply its rules during the 2020 Biden-Trump clashes — particularly when it failed to enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Trump and his entourage — and the team Biden has held talks with television networks and some Republicans about ways to circumvent the commission’s control over presidential debates.
Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon on Wednesday sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates to say that the Biden campaign objected to the fall dates selected by the commission, which come after some Americans began to vote, repeating a complaint also expressed by the Trump Campaign. She also expressed frustrations with rule violations and the commission’s insistence on holding debates before a live audience.
“Debates should be conducted for the benefit of American voters watching them on television and at home – not as entertainment for an in-person audience with loud or disruptive supporters and donors,” she said. televised debates in 1960, a television studio with just the candidates and moderators is a better and more economical way to proceed: focused exclusively on the voters’ interests.”
There was also little love for the commission from Trump, who objected to technicalities in his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was upset after a debate with Biden was canceled in 2020 after the Republican contracted COVID-19. The Republican National Committee had already promised not to work with a commission in the 2024 races.
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Trump campaign issued a statement on May 1 that objected to the commission’s scheduled debates, saying the calendar “starts AFTER early voting” and that “this is unacceptable” because voters deserve to hear from candidates before ballots are cast. .
O’Malley Dillon said debates “should be one-on-one, allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College — and not wasting debate time with candidates with no prospect of becoming president.”
Kennedy, in a statement, said that “Presidents Trump and Biden are conspiring to lock America into a direct confrontation that 70% say they do not want. They are trying to exclude me from the debate because they are afraid I will win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”
The Biden campaign also proposed that this year’s Biden-Trump debates be hosted by “any broadcast organization that hosted a 2016 Republican primary debate, in which Donald Trump participated, and a 2020 Democratic primary debate, in which President Biden participated – therefore, no campaign I can claim that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable: if both candidates have previously debated on their airwaves, then neither can object to such a venue.”
These criteria would eliminate Fox News, which did not host a Democratic primary debate in 2020, and potentially NBC News, which did not host a Republican debate in 2016 — although its corporate affiliates CNBC and Telmundo co-hosted one debate each that year. . .
As the debates began, both Biden and Trump exchanged barbs on social media – each claiming victory the last time they faced each other in 2020.
“Donald Trump lost two debates for me in 2020, since then he has not shown up for a debate,” Biden said in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, friend.”
Trump, in turn, said Biden was the “WORST debater I’ve ever faced – he can’t put two sentences together!”
The Democrat suggested that the two candidates could pick some dates, looking at Trump’s secret trial in New York, noting that the Republican is “free on Wednesdays,” the trial’s usual day off.
The president first indicated he would be willing to debate Trump during an interview with radio host Howard Stern last month, telling him that “I am, somewhere. I do not know when. But I’m happy to debate him.”
Biden indicated again last week that he was preparing for the debate, telling reporters as he left a White House event: “Get ready.”
