President Biden intends to debate former President Donald J. Trump at least twice before the election and as early as June, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times, but the Biden campaign has not been organizing presidential debates since 1988. It is said that he has rejected a bipartisan organization. times.
The Biden campaign’s letter reveals for the first time the president’s conditions for giving Trump what he has publicly requested: a televised showdown with his successor, something he has envisioned as a way to stay in office. I would like to clarify that it is too weak. work. In a post on Truth Social Wednesday morning, Trump quickly agreed to two dates proposed by the Biden campaign, but it was unclear whether he would agree to Biden’s other terms.
Biden and his aides are pushing for the debate to begin much earlier than the Commission on Presidential Debates’ proposed date so voters can see the two candidates side-by-side well before early voting begins in September. I want it. They want debates to take place inside television studios and microphones to be automatically disconnected after a speaker’s time limit expires. And they hosted two candidates and a host without the kind of raucous in-person audience that Mr. Trump cultivates, or the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other independent and third-party candidates. I would like the event to be held with only those involved.
The proposal comes as the president trails Trump in most battleground state polls and has struggled to convince voters that Biden is an effective leader and manager of the economy. This suggests that Mr. Biden is willing to take some calculated risks to reverse his fortunes. .
This is the first time the Biden campaign has formally offered a debate with Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to debate his successor “anytime, anywhere” and has called for as many debates as possible. Mr. Biden recently announced his intention to debate Mr. Trump, but so far he has not provided any firm promises or specific details.
The letter, signed by Biden’s campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, was addressed to the Commission on Presidential Debates and confirmed that Biden would not participate in the commission’s three general election debates. The group has been notified. Scheduled for September 16th, October 1st, and October 9th.
This is a shocking decision for Biden, an institutionalist who has sought to protect Washington’s traditions.
Instead, Ms. O’Malley Dillon wrote in her letter, Mr. Biden will participate in a debate sponsored by a news organization. The move opens the door for the Biden team, and potentially the Trump team, to negotiate directly with networks and each other in the lead-up to the debates.
Biden mocked Trump in a video announcing his proposal. “Enjoy your day,” he said, referring to the weekdays when Trump’s Manhattan trial is not normally held. “Let’s pick a date, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesday.
In his insult-filled response, Trump said he wanted more than one debate and a “very large venue to get excited.” He called Biden the “worst” debater and “crooked” and accused the president of being “afraid of crowds.”
Ms O’Malley Dillon has indicated that the first debate will be held in late June, after Mr Trump’s New York criminal trial has concluded and Mr Biden has returned from the G7 summit with other leaders. He suggested that it should be held.
The second presidential debate “should be held in early September, when the fall campaign season begins, early enough to influence early voting, but it should be held in the critical period of late September to October.” “It’s not so late that a candidate has to leave the campaign,” she writes.
The Biden campaign is also proposing to hold one vice presidential debate in late July, after Trump and his running mate are formally nominated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
For the president, early debates have great benefits. Early voting is extremely important, especially for Democrats. And polls show that Mr. Biden currently lags Mr. Trump, with his message on core issues such as the economy not resonating with enough voters.
In the 2020 election, Democrats placed great emphasis on early voting by mail as a safe alternative to in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Early voting gave Biden a decisive advantage over Trump, who had told voters not to trust the mail and to vote only on Election Day.
Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee have sought to repair that damage this year by encouraging Republicans to vote early.
“The commission’s failure to schedule a meaningful debate for all voters, not just those who voted late in the fall or on Election Day, highlights the serious limitations of its outdated approach,” Ms. O’Malley said. Stated. Dillon wrote in the letter:
Trump leads Biden in most battleground state polls, including recent polls by The New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Significantly more voters trust Trump than Biden in managing the economy.
The Biden campaign and the president’s White House staff widely feel that the 2020 debate was important and will be important this year as well.
The Biden campaign is trying to remind voters why a majority voted to remove Trump from office in 2020. Those close to the president have said they fear that voters are suffering from so-called Trump amnesia, a state of nostalgic memory of Trump. I had forgotten how divisive he was, but some recent polls drive home that point.
For the Biden campaign, they believe a side-by-side debate, which could draw large numbers of viewers, is the most dramatic way to increase Trump’s exposure.
In the first debate of 2020, Trump barely allowed Biden to speak. Mr. Biden was aggressive, sweating and looking sick, and was constantly being interrupted. Mr. Biden was enraged by this and famously told Mr. Trump: This is so un-presidential.” And in the days after that first debate, Trump’s poll numbers declined.
Trump campaign officials Susie Wiles and Chris Lacivita see the situation differently, sharing their boss’s enthusiasm for debating Biden as often as possible. They expressed that they did not care who hosted the debate or where it was held. The Trump campaign believes, almost coyly, that Biden has declined significantly since 2020 and will be exposed in a debate with Trump.
The letter from Ms. O’Malley Dillon could spell the end for the storied organization that has been organizing presidential debates since the Reagan administration. In a letter to the committee, she made it clear that the Biden campaign does not trust the organization to conduct professional debates, saying, “Rules could not be enforced for the 2020 debate. They either didn’t have it or didn’t have the will to enforce it.”
Among other complaints about the committee, Biden’s aides said Trump debated Biden in 2020 and visibly announced shortly after the debate that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. I’m still furious about the bad weather. The Biden team was also furious that members of the Trump family removed their masks when they arrived in the audience for the debate.
Still, the Biden campaign’s debate proposal comes with conditions. And the decision to recuse himself from the committee has clear advantages for Mr. Biden. First, the committee has already scheduled three presidential debates, although the Biden campaign has proposed limiting the number of debates to just two.
Biden campaign officials will hold the debate in a television studio without an in-person audience, where cheers and boos could derail the conversation, as Trump supporters did at last year’s CNN town hall. hope to do so. The committee always invites the audience to watch presidential debates.
It is possible that Mr. Kennedy could reach 15% of the vote in national polls and qualify for the committee’s debate. The Biden campaign views Kennedy as a spoiler candidate, and those close to the president worry that Kennedy’s name could draw support from voters likely to support Biden. .
In her letter, Ms. O’Malley Dillon wrote that debates should be held one-on-one to allow voters to compare “the only two candidates who are statistically likely to win the Electoral College.” “We should not let candidates waste debate time.” He could even become president. ”
The Biden campaign has proposed rules such as automatically disconnecting the microphone to prevent Trump from continuing to talk over Biden beyond the time limit, as he persistently did during the first debate in 2020. .
In the letter, O’Malley Dillon said: “Answers should have firm time limits and should take turns speaking. This way, the time is divided evenly and there is no spectacle of people interrupting each other. “It will allow us to exchange opinions.”
“Candidate microphones should only be activated when it is their turn to speak, to promote compliance with the rules and orderly proceedings.”
The Biden campaign is also proposing standards that would limit the television networks allowed to host debates. Ms. O’Malley Dillon wrote that only the broadcasting organization that hosted both the 2016 Republican primary debate, which included Mr. Trump, and the 2020 Democratic primary debate, which included Mr. Biden, should host it. The sponsoring organization can state that this is clearly unacceptable. ”
Networks that meet this criteria include CBS News, ABC News, CNN, and Telemundo.
And debate moderators “should be chosen from among the regular personnel by the broadcast moderators to avoid ‘sympathizers’ and partisanship,” Ms O’Malley Dillon added.
The lack of an audience could be a stalemate for Mr. Trump, who has often acted with audiences, encouraged by the applause, jeers and jeers of crowds at debates and town halls.
Despite this, the Trump campaign has been complaining to the committee for months.
In a May 1 statement condemning the group, Mr. Wiles and Mr. LaCivita criticized the group for not agreeing to an early debate given the fact that early voting begins well before Election Day. did.
“We need to host a debate sooner than ever,” they said. “Once again, we call on all U.S. television networks that wish to host debates to extend their invitation to join our campaign. I’m willing to negotiate with the Biden team, no matter what.”
For decades, candidates from both parties have criticized the commission. In 2000, George W. Bush’s campaign attempted to schedule its own debates, but ultimately agreed to one led by the organization.
In 2012, Republicans were furious about a debate between their candidate, Mitt Romney, and incumbent President Barack Obama, when the moderator fact-checked Romney in real time during one debate. expressed dissatisfaction.
In 2016, the Trump campaign fought with the committee over the seating of four women in the Trump family’s box at a debate, three of whom were accused of sexual harassment by Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. He was accused of illegal activity.
And in 2020, both the Trump and Biden teams struggled with the committee. Trump boycotted the scheduled second debate, but the group decided to make it a virtual event.
In 2022, the Republican National Committee, which has no direct role in negotiating presidential debates with the committee, unanimously voted to withdraw party candidates from debates with Republicans.
Reid J. Epstein Contributed to the report.
