President Biden is willing to debate former President Donald J. Trump at least twice before the election, and as early as June, but his campaign rejects the nonpartisan organization that has managed presidential debates since 1988, according to a letter obtained by The New York. Times.
The Biden campaign letter sets out for the first time the president’s terms for giving Trump what he has openly clamored for a televised confrontation with a successor that Trump has portrayed and hopes to reveal, as too weak to hold power. job.
Biden and his top advisers want the debates to begin well before the dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, so voters can see the two candidates side by side well before early voting begins in September. They want the debate to take place inside a television studio, with microphones that automatically cut off when a speaker’s time limit passes. And they want it to be just the two candidates and the moderator, without the raucous in-person audiences that Trump feeds on and without the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.
The proposal suggests that Biden is willing to take some calculated risks to reverse his fortunes in a race where most polls in key states show the president trailing Trump and struggling to persuade voters that he is an effective leader and administrator of the economy.
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It is the Biden campaign’s first formal offer to debate Trump, who has repeatedly stated that he will debate his successor “anytime, anywhere” and has demanded as many debates as possible. Biden recently indicated that she would debate Trump, but until now had declined to give any firm commitment or specific details.
The letter, signed by Biden campaign chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and addressed to the Commission on Presidential Debates, notifies the group that Biden will not participate in the three general election debates sponsored by the commission, which are scheduled for September 16, October 1, and October 9.
It is a surprising decision for Biden, an institutionalist who has sought to preserve Washington traditions.
Instead, O’Malley Dillon writes in the letter that Biden will participate in debates hosted by news organizations. Biden also recorded a video to reaffirm her intention to debate Trump. The move opens the door for Biden’s team and potentially Trump’s team to negotiate directly with the networks (and each other) for potential debates.
O’Malley Dillon suggested the first debate be held in late June when Trump’s criminal trial in New York should be completed, and after Biden returns from Group of 7 summit meetings with other heads of state.
A second presidential debate should be held “in early September, at the start of the fall campaign season, early enough to influence early voting but not so late as to force the candidates to abandon the election campaign in the critical period of late September and October. ” she writes.
Biden’s campaign is also proposing that a vice presidential debate be held 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 significant advantages. Early voting is crucial, especially for Democrats. Polls show that Biden is currently trailing Trump and that his messages on core issues like the economy are not resonating with enough voters.
In the 2020 election, Democrats placed heavy emphasis on early mail-in voting as a safe alternative to in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Early voting gave Biden a decisive advantage over Trump, who had told his voters not to trust the mail and instead vote only on Election Day.
Trump and the Republican National Committee have tried to repair that damage this year by telling Republicans to vote early.
“The commission’s failure, once again, to schedule debates that are meaningful to all voters, not just those who cast ballots in the late fall or on Election Day, underscores the serious limitations of its outdated approach. “Ms. O’Malley said. Dillon writes in the letter.
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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 to handle the economy.
The Biden campaign and the president’s White House staff generally feel that the debates were important in 2020 and will be important again this year.
Biden’s campaign has been trying to remind voters why a majority removed Trump from office in 2020. People close to the president have said they are worried about so-called Trump amnesia: that voters are nostalgic for Trump and have forgotten what divisive it was, and some of the recent polls underscore that point.
In his view, a side-by-side debate, which could have a large audience, is the most dramatic way for the Biden campaign to give Trump more exposure.
In the first debate of 2020, Trump barely allowed Biden to say a word. He was aggressive and interrupted constantly, while he was sweating and looking sick. An exasperated Biden told Trump: “Will you shut up, man? “This is so unpresidential.” And in the days after that first debate, Trump’s poll numbers fell.
Top Trump campaign officials Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita see the situation differently and share their boss’s eagerness to debate Biden as often as possible. They have indicated that they do not care who organizes the debate or where it takes place. The Trump campaign believes, almost to the letter, that Biden has declined significantly since 2020 and would be exposed in a debate against Trump.
O’Malley Dillon’s letter could spell the end of a historic organization that has been hosting presidential debates since the Reagan era. In his letter, he makes it clear to the commission that the Biden campaign does not trust the organization to conduct a professional debate, saying it “was unable or unwilling to enforce the rules in the 2020 debates.”
Among other complaints to the commission, Biden’s advisers are still furious that Trump debated Biden in 2020 and appeared visibly unwell, announcing shortly after the debate that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Biden’s 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 sideline the commission offers clear advantages to Biden. For starters, the Biden campaign proposes limiting the number of debates to just two, while the commission has already scheduled three presidential debates.
Biden campaign officials want the debates to be held in a television studio without an in-person audience who can cheer, boo, and derail the conversation, as Trump supporters did during a Keynote USA town hall last year. The commission always invites an audience to watch his presidential debates.
There is also a chance that Kennedy could reach the 15 percent threshold in national polls to qualify for the commission debates. Biden’s campaign sees Kennedy as a saboteur candidate, and people close to the president worry that using Kennedy’s name could draw support from voters who would otherwise support Biden.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon writes in her letter that the debate should be one-on-one to allow voters to “compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College, and not waste debate time on candidates without any statistical possibility of prevailing in the Electoral College.” prospect of becoming president.”
Biden’s campaign has proposed rules, including automatic microphone cutoff, to ensure Trump doesn’t go over his time limits and talk over Biden as he relentlessly did during their first debate in 2020.
“There should be firm time limits on responses and alternating turns to speak, so that time is divided equally and we have an exchange of opinions, not a spectacle of mutual interruption,” O’Malley Dillon writes in the letter.
“A candidate’s microphone should only be active when it is their turn to speak, to promote compliance with the rules and order of the process.”
Biden’s campaign has also proposed criteria to limit which television networks can host the debate. It should only be hosted, O’Malley Dillon writes, by broadcast organizations that hosted both a 2016 Republican primary debate in which Trump participated and a 2020 Democratic primary debate in which Biden participated, “so no “I Can” campaign claim that the sponsoring organization is unacceptable.
Networks that meet that mark include Keynote USA, Keynote USA, Keynote USA, and Telemundo.
And debate moderators “should be selected by the broadcast host from among his or her regular staff, to avoid ‘ringing’ or partisanship,” adds Ms. O’Malley Dillon.
The absence of an audience could be a sticking point for Trump, who has often performed before crowds at debates and town halls, encouraged by their applause, boos, and jeers.
However, the Trump campaign has been complaining about the commission for months.
In a May 1 statement condemning the organization, Wiles and LaCivita criticized the group for not accepting past debates given the fact that early voting begins well before Election Day.
“We must organize debates sooner than ever,” they said. “Once again, we call on all US television networks wishing to host a debate to extend an invitation to our campaign and we will be happy to negotiate with the Biden campaign, with or without the stubborn Commission on Presidential Debates ”.
For decades, candidates from both parties have criticized the commission. In 2000, George W. Bush’s campaign attempted to design its debate schedule but ultimately agreed to debates run by the organization.
In 2012, Republicans complained bitterly about debates between Mitt Romney, their nominee, and incumbent President Barack Obama, when a moderator fact-checked Romney in real-time during a debate.
In 2016, the Trump campaign fought with the commission over the seat of four women in the Trump family box at a debate, three of whom had accused Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual misconduct.
And in 2020, both the Trump and Biden teams ran into trouble with the commission. Trump boycotted the second scheduled debate, which the organization decided to turn into a virtual event.
In 2022, the Republican National Committee, which has no direct role in negotiating presidential debates with the commission, voted unanimously for the party’s candidate to withdraw from debates with the organization.
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