President Joe Biden will debate former President Donald Trump twice before November’s general election, first on June 27 on CNN and then on Sept. 10 on ABC.
The debates were organized after Biden issued a challenge to Trump on social media Wednesday morning.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate,” Biden said in a video posted on X. “Now, he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice. … I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
In addition to the video, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign chairwoman, sent the Commission on Presidential Debates a letter advising members of the panel the president would not be taking part in their events and proposing alternatives in June and September instead, excluding independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The Biden-Harris campaign is proposing that the first debate be in late June, after Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial is likely to be over and after President Biden returns from meeting with world leaders at the G7 Summit,” Biden Communications Director Michael Tyler told reporters on Wednesday, providing Biden’s reasoning behind the dates. “A second presidential debate would occur in September prior to the beginning of early voting.”
“We also propose a vice presidential debate to occur in late July after the Republicans nominate their vice presidential candidate,” Tyler said.
The developments rankled Kennedy, who accused Biden and Trump of “colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.”
“They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win,” Kennedy posted on X. “By excluding me from the stage, Presidents Biden and Trump seek to avoid discussion of their eight years of mutual failure including deficits, wars, lockdowns, chronic disease, and inflation.”
Earlier, Trump quickly accepted Biden’s challenge, describing the president as “the worst debater” and claiming he cannot “put two words together.” He previously started placing an empty podium beside him onstage at his rallies in his own debate challenge.
“It’s time for a debate so that he can explain to the American People his highly destructive Open Border Policy, new and ridiculous EV Mandates, the allowance of Crushing Inflation, High Taxes, and his really WEAK Foreign Policy, which is allowing the World to ‘Catch on Fire,'” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds — That’s only because he doesn’t get them.”
“Just tell me when, I’ll be there,” he added.
But in O’Malley Dillon’s letter, she contended that a “television studio with just the candidates and moderators” is a “better, more cost-efficient way to proceed” with the debates, possibly opening up a sticking point between the two candidates’ campaigns.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is seeking four debates between Biden and Trump: one in June, July, August, and September.
“We believe there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves,” Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a memo. “With the soaring inflation of Bidenomics costing America’s hardworking families at the grocery store and at the gas pump, with our border being totally overrun, with chaos at home, chaos across the world, chaos on our college campuses, we should have one debate per month.”
Biden earlier posted on X that he had received and accepted an invitation to debate on CNN, with the network confirming Trump’s attendance at the event on June 27 in Atlanta, before the ABC event on Sept. 10 was announced. Trump has accepted another debate on Fox News on Oct. 2, which Biden has declined.
“Donald Trump has a long history of playing games with debates: complaining about the rules, breaking those rules, pulling out at the last minute, or not showing up at all — which he’s done repeatedly in all three cycles he’s run for president,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in a separate statement. “President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms. No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates.”
The Trump campaign has complained about the Debates Commission, a nonprofit corporation that has been responsible for the events since 1988, since the 2020 election when it proposed holding a virtual iteration because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her letter on Wednesday, O’Malley Dillon similarly criticized the commission for proposing a debate schedule that would not have concluded until after early voting had commenced, for encouraging the events to become an entertainment spectacle, and for being unable to enforce its own rules.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It should be hosted by any broadcast organization that hosted a Republican Primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated — so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable,” the campaign chairwoman wrote. “The moderator(s) should be selected by the broadcast host from among their regular personnel, so as to avoid a ‘ringer’ or partisan.”
“As Donald Trump has said he will debate ‘anytime, anywhere,’ we hope both campaigns can quickly accept broadcast media debate invitations on the parameters above,” she continued. “Americans need a debate on the issues — not a tedious debate about debates.”
