Biden Proposes 2 Debates With Trump, Ditching Bipartisan Commission
President Joe Biden is officially ditching the bipartisan commission that has conducted presidential debates since the late 1980s and is instead proposing two debates with former President Donald Trump — one as early as June.
In a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon cites several reasons for doing so: that the scheduled debates would take place too late in the process (“after tens of millions of Americans will have already voted”), that its model is antiquated and geared towards “huge spectacles” rather than “good debates”; and that the commission was “unable or unwilling to enforce the rules” during the 2020 debates, when Trump famously talked over Biden and the moderator.
“We are advising you now of this decision, months in advance of the dates you announced you are planning for, to enable you to avoid incurring further production, and other expenses on the assumption that the Democratic nominee, President Biden, will participate. For the reasons stated above, he will not,” O’Malley Dillon writes.
In a response posted on social media Wednesday, Trump said he’s “Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September.” He added that he would recommend more than two debates.
The Biden campaign’s decision to ditch the CPD format is the clearest signal to date that there may not be any presidential debates at all this cycle. Already, Trump has leveled heavy criticisms against the Commission on Presidential Debates — which the Republican National Committee disavowed two years ago and said its candidates would not cooperate with — arguing that it is biased against him. Conversely, he has argued that its debate schedule begins too late, coming after several states will have begun their early voting period.
In her letter, O’Malley Dillon proposed hosting the first debate in 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.” She said that it should be hosted by one broadcast organization that moderated a Republican primary debate in 2016 as well as one that did so in the Democratic primary in 2020, in order to create an acceptable balance.
Republicans could select Fox News, since it hosted Republican debates in 2016, but not a Democratic debate in 2020. The list of news organizations that hosted debates in both primaries is: ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News. PBS also hosted a Democratic debate in 2020, but not a Republican debate in 2016. Biden’s decision to call for two debates is, itself, notable. Democrats had privately wondered whether the president would duck the debates entirely in line with his lower public profile approach to the office. That he is not suggests that the campaign recognizes it needs to take advantage of the few remaining major events that could sway voter opinions.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again,” Biden said in a video that his campaign posted to X. “Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”
The commission had scheduled four debates — three for the presidential nominees and one for their running mates — beginning on Sept. 16. The final debate was scheduled for Oct. 9.
