Take It Outside
© Ted Rall
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Previously, US President Joe Biden said he would be “happy” to debate former President Donald Trump before the November election, in response to a question from Howard Stern during an hour-long interview.
On Wednesday, Biden challenged Trump to a debate in a video posted to X. The president’s inciting statements mocked Trump for being “free on Wednesdays”, which makes light of the former president’s ongoing hush money trial.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again,” said Biden in the video. “Well make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.
Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u
The Biden campaign offered up two dates for the presidential debates, one in late June and the other in September. Later on Wednesday, Biden announced on social media that he had received and accepted an invitation for a CNN-hosted debate on June 27 in Atlanta, which Trump said he will attend. The second debate will be hosted on September 10 by ABC News and both presidential contenders have reportedly accepted the invite.
"I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September," Trump posted. "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. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’"
But there’s a catch - Biden’s campaign team has pressed for several conditions to be applied to the debates. The team sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), revealing their requests. Firstly, they want the debate to take place in a television studio with just the candidates and the moderator president, meaning: no audience.
"The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering. As was the case with the original televised debates in 1960, a television studio with just the candidates and moderators is a better, more cost-efficient way to proceed: focused solely on the interests of voters," Biden's campaign wrote.
The campaign also does not want a third party candidate to participate in the debate, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. US Democrats fear independent candidates will draw votes away from their party. Biden’s team has cited their exclusion of Kennedy by suggesting that only candidates with “statistical chance[s] of prevailing in the Electoral College” should participate and that debate time should not be squandered on candidates with “no prospect of becoming President.”
“Forty-three percent of Americans identify as independents,” said Kennedy in response. “If Americans are ever going to escape the hammerlock of the two-party system, now is the time to do it. These are the two most unpopular candidates in living memory.”
Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 15, 2024
They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.…
During the 2020 debates between Trump and Biden, the Biden campaign struck out at the CPD for allowing extensive crosstalk and interruptions. They are requesting “firm time limits” for answers and that a “candidate’s microphone should only be active when it is his turn to speak."
While Trump has said for months that he would debate Biden, the president has been more reluctant to give into his predecessor’s wishes until he suggested otherwise in April. Biden is also one of three presidents who have given few interviews and press conferences in the last century, according to a New York Times.
And it will be the first debate for the Oval Office that Trump has participated in this election season. The former president skipped all of the GOP debates in 2023, excusing his decision on his substantial polling. Instead, the former president hosted events and participated in interviews, all while battling his endless legal troubles.
