President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump appear poised to participate in a debate ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Both candidates are their respective parties’ presumed nominees ahead of summer party conventions.
What Happened: Biden signaled his intent to participate in debates in a post to the social media site X on Wednesday. “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020; since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate,” Biden said. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”
“So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden said in an apparent reference to Trump’s ongoing court schedule in the New York hush money trial.
Biden posted later that he would accept an invitation for a debate hosted by CNN on Jun. 27 along with a prior indication that he would debate Trump on an undisclosed date in September.
Trump shortly responded. “I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds — That's only because he doesn't get them.”
The Biden campaign’s proposal appears to shun the traditional election-year debate schedule from the Commission on Presidential Debates. According to the New York Times, the Biden campaign cited the need for debates to fall before early voting.
It has also been proposed that each candidate’s microphone be turned off when not speaking to eliminate the back-and-forth interruptions that occurred during the 2020 debates.
Why It Matters: It was previously unclear whether the presumptive presidential nominees would participate in debates. Voters on both sides of the aisle have continually expressed concerns with Biden’s age — Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term.
Trump would be 82 by the end of his potential second term.
Some political commentators have previously voiced disapproval of the prospect of debates between Biden and Trump.
Atlantic staff writer David Frum wrote in an April column that to give Trump “equal status on a TV stage would be a dire normalization of his attempted coup.”
“Political debates exist to provide voters with relevant information about their electoral choices. The most necessary information that Biden needs to communicate is that Trump is a traitor to the U.S. Constitution,” Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said.
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