(RepublicanReport.org) – For months, voters have been wondering if there would be a debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, as they are both the presumptive nominees for their parties. The former US leader has been called on the president to debate him “anytime, anywhere, anyplace.” Biden has been less vocal about the matter — until now.
What Happened?
On May 15, the president made a video challenging Trump to debate, noting that the former president hadn’t “shown up for a debate” since he lost two head-to-heads to Biden in 2020. The US leader said he was ready to pick the dates, adding a jab at the end that he heard he was “free on Wednesdays” — a reference to the mid-week break from Trump’s criminal trial in New York. Trump enthusiastically accepted the proposal.
The pair settled on two debates. The first one will occur on June 27 in Georgia at CNN’s Atlanta studios with CNN as the host. The news outlet confirmed the date in a statement, which outlined that there would be no audience and the candidates needed to file a Statement of Candidacy with the FEC, the participants’ names must appear on enough ballots to achieve 270 electoral votes in the general election, must agree to the rules for the debate, and have poll numbers reaching at least 15% from 4 different national polls.
The second debate will be hosted by ABC News, which agreed to the same terms. Trump tried to set a third debate on October 2 with Fox News as the host, but the Biden campaign rejected the proposal. The former president took to his social media platform to insult the president while indicating he wanted more debates “for excitement purposes” with big crowds, adding that Biden was “afraid of crowds.”
The President’s Terms
The Biden Harris campaign sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates stating that the president believed timely debates between him and Trump were in the best “interests of the American people.” The communication said that Vice President Kamala Harris is also open to debate Trump’s running mate. Biden’s campaign notified the commission that he will not participate in “debates hosted by news organizations” and outlined the reasons why.
The letter said the commission’s debates were not timely, invited large audiences that made the event a spectacle rather than effective, and the commission’s unwillingness to enforce debate rules. However, the two debates set for June and September will meet the president’s parameters.
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