Joe Biden agrees to participate in presidential election debates with Donald Trump
The president had until now been reluctant to debate again with his predecessor, but the television networks issued a plea not to break with the tradition
If there are no unexpected forks in the road, there will be electoral debates ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. It is a decades-old tradition, but its continuity on this occasion was up in the air. The incumbent president, Democrat Joe Biden, had been reluctant to debate his Republican rival, Donald Trump, whom he considers a danger to democracy. On Friday, however, Biden indicated his willingness to verbally spar with the former president in a radio interview.
When the host of the show, Howard Stern, asked Biden if he was willing to debate Trump, the president replied: “I am, somewhere, I don’t know when. I’m happy to debate him.” Previously, Biden had said that Trump’s conduct would be a prerequisite to whether he would agree to participate in a debate. On March 8, he was asked if he would commit to a face-to-face with the Republican candidate and replied: “It depends on his behavior.”
For his part, Trump, who did not participate in the Republican primary debates, has said he would face Biden under certain conditions. His campaign managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, said this month: “We have already indicated President Trump is willing to debate anytime, anyplace, and anywhere — and the time to start these debates is now.”
A total of 12 news organizations issued a joint statement on April 14 calling on the presidential candidates to agree to hold debates during the campaign for the upcoming November 5 presidential election.
“General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election of the past 50 years, dating to 1976,″ the news organizations’ release said. “In each of those elections, tens of millions have tuned in to watch the candidates debating side by side, in a competition of ideas for the votes of American citizens.”
Since 1988, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored every general election presidential debate. It has already set dates for three meetings between the White House candidates and one for the vice-presidential nominees, but it is too early to tell whether they will take place.
Three proposed debates
According to the commission’s proposal, the first presidential debate would take place on September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos. The second would be held on October 1 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, and the third on October 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Between the first and the second debate between the presidential candidates, one between Kamala Harris and Trump’s as-yet undecided running mate would be staged on September 25 at Lafayette College, in Easton (Pennsylvania). The committee has yet to decide on the format and moderators if these dates are confirmed. All debates would begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and last 90 minutes, without a commercial break.
“Though it is too early for invitations to be extended to any candidates, it is not too early for candidates who expect to meet the eligibility criteria to publicly state their support for — and their intention to participate in — the Commission’s debates planned for this fall,” the news organizations noted in their release in a statement underwritten by ABC, Associated Press, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, NBCUniversal, NewsNation, Univision, NPR, PBS, and USA Today.
“If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high. Amidst that backdrop, there is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation,” they concluded.
The Republican National Committee voted in 2022 to stop participating in debates staged by the commission. Campaign officials contend that in 2020 the commission selected an “avowedly anti-Trump moderator,” then-Fox News host Chris Wallace. The former president also reported a technical problem with his microphone during a 2016 debate and criticized the decision to cancel a third debate with Biden in 2020, after Trump tested positive for Covid and refused to participate virtually. The Trump campaign also wants the schedule moved up, arguing that many Americans will have already voted by the time the commission’s proposed dates arrive.
During the 2020 election campaign, at the height of the pandemic, there were two debates. In the first, in Cleveland (Ohio), Biden was visibly upset with his opponent in a chaotic debate in which Trump interrupted him 35 times during his turn to speak. The moderator called Trump to order up to 13 times, and at one point Biden said in exasperation: “Will you shut up, man?” The second debate took place in Nashville (Tennessee) and was somewhat less heated.
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