WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed Wednesday that two campaign debates — the first on June 27 on CNN and the second on Sept. 10 on ABC — setting the stage for the first presidential face-off in weeks.
A quick agreement on a timetable for the meeting followed the Democratic Party’s announcement that he would not participate in the fall Presidential debates Funded by an impartial commission that organized them for more than three decades. Biden’s campaign instead proposed that the media directly organize the debates Presumptive Democratic and Republican Candidates, the first poll will be held in late June and the second in September before early voting begins. Trump, in a post on his Truth Community site, said Biden was “ready and willing to debate” at the proposed time.
Hours later, Biden said he had accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on June 27, saying, “Over you, Donald. Like you said: anywhere, anytime, anywhere. Trump told Truth Social that he would be there, adding, “Let’s get ready for the Rumble!!!”
Soon after they agreed to a second debate on ABC. Trump said he was “greatly honored” to host the debates on Truth Social.
Biden said he also received and accepted invitations. Trump says he arranges his own transportation. I will also bring my plane. I plan to keep it for another four years,” he wrote on X.
Things to know about 2024 elections
However, the two sides appeared to have some differences on key questions, including how to organize the debates, agree on moderators and rules — some of the questions that prompted the creation of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987.
Biden’s campaign proposed excluding third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr, from discussions. According to debate commission rules, Kennedy or other third-party candidates can qualify if they have enough ballot access to receive 270 electoral votes and receive 15% or more of the vote in national polls.
CNN said the debate would take place in its Atlanta studios and “there would be no audience.” The assessors and other details will be announced later, it said. If Kennedy or any other candidate met the election and ballot access requirements, it left the door open for Kennedy’s participation.
On a recent Wednesday morning, Trump expressed his desire to a large live audience.
“I strongly recommend more than two debates, and for excitement purposes, a very large venue, even though Biden is said to be afraid of crowds — because he doesn’t get them,” Trump said. “Tell me when I’ll be back.”
Trump has been pushing for more debates and earlier debates, arguing that voters can get a better look at what the two sides face before early voting begins in September. He has repeatedly said he will debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, any place.” It even proposes a face-to-face encounter between the two He is currently on criminal trial outside a Manhattan court A hush money case. He mocked Biden at some of his rallies with an empty lecture.
Biden’s campaign has a long-standing grudge against the impartiality commission for failing to apply its rules evenly during the 2020 Biden-Trump race — especially when it It did not enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Trump and his entourage — and Biden’s team has been negotiating with television networks and some Republicans about ways to avoid the commission’s grip on presidential debates.
AP Washington Correspondent Sagar Meghani reports that President Biden and Donald Trump have apparently agreed to host a pair of debates.
Biden campaign chairman Jen O’Malley Dillon sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates on Wednesday, saying Biden’s campaign objected to the fall dates chosen by the commission, which come after some Americans have already started voting, which again complained. The Trump campaign. He also expressed frustration at the commission’s insistence on rule violations and holding debates in front of a live audience.
“Debates should be held for the benefit of the American electorate, watched on television and at home — not as entertainment for in-person audiences with rude or disruptive partisans and donors,” he said. “As it is The original televised debates in 1960A television studio with just candidates and moderators is a better, more cost-efficient way to proceed: focusing only on the interests of voters.
The commission also got little love from Trump, who ran into technical issues in his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and was upset after a debate with Biden in 2020 was canceled after the Republican came down with Covid-19. The Republican National Committee had already pledged not to work with the commission on the 2024 games.
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Trump campaign released a statement on May 1 opposing the commission’s scheduled deliberations, saying the schedule “starts after early voting” and that “this is unacceptable” because voters deserve to hear from candidates before they cast ballots.
O’Malley Dillon said the debates should be “one-on-one, with voters comparing only the two candidates with their statistical chances in the Electoral College — and not wasting debate time on candidates who have no chance of becoming president.”
Kennedy, in a statement, said Trump and Biden “have colluded to lock America into a head-on conflict that 70% say they don’t want.”
“They are trying to exclude me from the debate because they are afraid I will win,” he said. “Keeping potential candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”
In fueling the debates, both Biden and Trump traded barbs on social media — each touting the success of their last face-off in 2020.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then, he hasn’t been to a debate,” Biden said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.”
Trump Biden “worst debater I’ve ever met – he can’t string two sentences together!”
The Democratic president first indicated he was open to debating Trump during an interview with radio host Howard Stern last month, telling him “I’m somewhere. Don’t know when. But I am happy to discuss him. Last week he hinted again that he was preparing for the debate, telling reporters as he left the White House: “Set it up.”
