Joe Biden It is donald trump they are once again debating debates. And for good reasons that have nothing to do with debates.
The current president and the president he defeated in 2020 and will face again in November need to shift gears from very bad news to their campaigns this week.
For Biden, the problem was a set of research Monday from Siena College, The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, which showed him trailing Trump in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
For Trump, the dilemma was in Tuesday’s primary elections in Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia, where his former competitor Nikki Haley won significant votes, despite having withdrawn from the race 10 weeks ago. Haley, former governor of South Carolina, won 31% of the vote Tuesday in Maryland, 18% in NebraskaIt is 9.5% in West Virginia.
This is difficult news for any campaign. So let’s talk debates!
Biden rejects the presidential debates scheduled for these two new ones
Biden kicked off the discussion Wednesday with a letter from his campaign manager to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has coordinated and managed general election debates since 1988.
Biden is ending this 36-year run with a letter announcing that he will not participate in the three debates that the committee had provisionally scheduled for September and October. Vice President Kamala Harris will also skip the only debate in her office in September, the letter said.
Instead, Biden’s team said he will push for two debates — one in late June and one in early September — hosted by television organizations that held a Republican primary debate in 2016 and a Democratic primary debate in 2020. Harris would participate in a debate. in July.
Trump and Biden to debate: Biden gets his wish to debate Trump. But it won’t be the victory he thinks.
Biden also wants to bar third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jill Stein, with the letter describing the president and Trump as “the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College.”
And the letter takes down Trump for their often uncontrollable behavior during two debates with Biden in 2020, saying that any news organization should mute the candidate’s microphone until it is his turn to speak.
The Biden camp offered three reasons for all this, and two of them recalled 2020. The letter said the debates should benefit American voters, not “noisy or disruptive supporters and donors” in the audience. He also said the commission was “unable or unwilling to enforce the rules” in 2020, when Trump repeatedly interrupted debates while Biden tried to speak.
The third reason is that early voting means that some people will have voted before the committee’s first proposed debate.
Trump offers his usual bravado as he challenges Biden to more debates
Trump responded quickly with arrogance, of course, posting on his social media site Truth Social“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I’ve ever faced – he can’t string two sentences together. Crooked is also the WORST president in US history, by far.”
Trump also said he would “strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue.” Sounds like someone misses an audience full of “noisy or disruptive supporters and donors.”
The Trump campaign responded to Biden with a memo on Wednesday proposing a CNN debate on June 27, along with three more in-person meetings in July, August and September and a vice-presidential debate in September. So Trump returned to Truth Social propose a debate ABC News on September 10th.
Biden on the social networks accepted both debate dates.
Trump needs better lies: Trump followers believe all his lies. But if he was a true alpha male, he would lie BIGGER.
Trump has been pushing his “anytime, anywhere, anywhere” call for early debates since March. It has served as a distraction before his criminal trial in New Yorkwhere he is accused of using hush money to influence the 2016 election, paying an adult film star to keep silent about an alleged sexual dalliance a decade earlier.
Trump’s arrogance was likely fueled by Biden’s criticism on Wednesday about his legal troubles. Biden’s letter to the commission said the first debate would be scheduled for when the trial was over. And Biden posted a 14 second video on the website formerly known as Twitter Wednesday which stated the following:
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. And he hasn’t shown up for a debate since. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I heard you’re free on Wednesdays.
That last line is a reference to Trump’s criminal trial that will not take place on Wednesdays. Zing.
We are officially in a new era of presidential debates
Trump, in his only term and in his two candidacies, demolished established norms regarding presidential behavior. Biden defeated him four years ago by promising a return to some sense of normality.
The debate about the debates shows that none of this is coming back anytime soon, even as some political insiders yearn for a return to the old order of things.
Frank Fahrenkopf, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee who now co-chairs the Commission on Presidential Debates, seemed certain Tuesday afternoon that Biden and Trump would follow the same debate procedure that has been used in the last nine presidential elections. .
“I think the fact that we’re still alive, after being around since 1988, is that we do a good job walking the middle,” Fahrenkopf said, emphasizing the commission’s nonpartisan approach in a virtual meeting with the group No Labels. .
Fahrenkopf could not have known that Biden and Trump would essentially disband the commission the next day. Yet another set of barriers to democracy left aside along the way.
This is the Biden-Trump show from now on. Your campaigns will have to work on the details.
Only one thing is certain: Debates designed to give voters a sense of which candidate to support will likely now serve more as distractions from any bad news ahead for the Biden and Trump campaigns.
Follow USA TODAY election columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: The Biden and Trump presidential debates are underway. Expect more madness.
