President Joe Biden and Donald Trump scheduled two debates on Wednesday after the Democratic incumbent issued an outspoken challenge to his Republican predecessor.
CNN will air the primary presidential debate on June 27 at 9 p.m. ET in Atlanta with no studio audience. Both candidates agreed to a debate hosted by ABC News on September tenth.
Trump's campaign on Wednesday also called for 2 more debates in July and August.
“Make my day, buddy,” Biden said in a single Video The letter, published on Wednesday, challenged Trump to debate it twice with special conditions.
Biden's campaign said each showdowns can be held by media organizations without bipartisan involvement Commission which normally organizes presidential debates. The campaign also insisted that only the 2 major party candidates and a moderator be present, and that there can be no studio audience for either showdown.
“Just tell me when I’ll be there,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post accepting Biden’s challenge. 'Here we go!!!”
“I am ready and willing to debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump added.
CNN said the June debate would only include candidates whose names appear on “enough state ballots to succeed in the 270 electoral vote threshold and win the presidency before the eligibility deadline.”
The media outlet also said that participants would have to “receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN standards for reporting.”
Robert Kennedy Jr., who is running for the White House as an independent, received the support of 13% of respondents in a recent NBC News poll and 16% in a CNN poll this month.
In a letter Wednesday to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O'Malley Dillon said the campaign has refused to participate in the organizational debates scheduled for Sept. 16, Oct. 1 and Oct. 9 are planned.
“The Presidential Commission's longstanding model for these debates is at odds with changes within the structure of our elections and the interests of voters,” O'Malley Dillon wrote of the group, which has been hosting debates since 1988.
The commission said Wednesday it was still “ready to hold its scheduled debates.”
Biden's campaign objected to the commission scheduling the debates after early voting had already begun and treated the debates more as entertainment, O'Malley Dillon wrote.
She also said the commission had repeatedly failed to enforce debate rules, leading to “loud spectacles of approval or ridicule.”
During the 2020 debates, Biden and Trump regularly engaged in shouting matches, with each trying to get their say.
This time, Biden's campaign suggested that each candidate should have set time limits for answering questions and that their microphone should be turned off when a candidate is not speaking.
Biden's proposal to hold the first debate in June noted that it would take place after the expected end of Trump's New York hush money trial and Biden's appearance at the G7 summit.
Biden's campaign also suggested that the vice presidential debate should take place in the second half of July, after the Republican National Convention, where the party formally nominates its presidential candidate.
The second presidential debate would take place in September, following the Democratic National Convention in August.
The debates would exclude any other candidate for the White House, including Kennedy, and would “not waste debate time on candidates who don’t have any hope of becoming president,” O'Malley Dillon wrote.
Kennedy on Wednesday rejected the possibility that he would be barred from participating in the debates with Biden and Trump.
“By barring me from the stage, Presidents Biden and Trump are trying to avoid discussion of their eight years of mutual failure, including deficits, wars, lockdowns, chronic disease and inflation,” Kennedy wrote in a social media post -Page X
Biden's debate proposal follows a recent one New York Times A poll showed the incumbent trailing his Republican challenger in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, less than six months before an election that many believe will be all but dead.
Given Biden's popularity problems, the parameters of the debate could help the candidates compete on policy issues rather than for the applause of a raucous crowd.
In Biden's Wednesday video posted on X, the president said: “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. He has not appeared at a debate since.
“Well, have a nice day, buddy. I even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald,” Biden said.
“I heard you have Wednesdays off,” the president said, referring to the day the court will not be in session for Trump’s ongoing trial.
Trump wrote in his Truth Social post: “Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever met – He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also by far the WORST president in the history of the United States.”
Trump added: “It's time for a debate so he can explain to the American people his extremely destructive open borders policies, new and ridiculous EV mandates, enabling crushing inflation, high taxes and his truly WEAK foreign policy, that allows it.” The world catches fire. I am ready and willing to debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September.”
“I might strongly recommend greater than two debates and a really large venue for excitement, although Biden is alleged to be afraid of crowds – that's simply because he doesn't get them,” Trump wrote.
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