President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump have both agreed to a debate on CNN in late June after Biden challenged his 2024 rival to join him on stage and to "make my day, pal."
The debate is slated for 9 p.m. on June 27. Fox News first reported on Trump’s decision to accept the CNN offer.
Biden announced on X on Wednesday morning that he wants to debate Trump twice, and taunted the former president about his ongoing “hush-money” criminal trial, which is off on Wednesdays.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day pal,” Biden said in a pre-recorded video. “I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
The Biden campaign is already selling “Free on Wednesdays” merchandise promoting his supposed eagerness to debate Trump.
The Biden campaign rejected the dates proposed by the commission on presidential debates. The campaign is hoping to hold the first debate as early as June, the New York Times reported. Trump’s criminal trial will likely be finished if the first debate takes place next month.
The proposed second debate would 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 require the candidates to leave the campaign trail in the critical late September and October period,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a letter. Early voting is expected to play a key role in Democrats voter turnout operation ahead of election day.
Trump immediately responded on Truth Social to Biden’s debate pitch and expressed support for more than two debates.
“I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September. 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,” Trump said with his typical bravado. “Just tell me when, I'll be there. ‘Let's get ready to Rumble!!!’"
Third party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not part of the Biden campaign’s debate plans. The Biden campaign hopes to stage the debate in a TV studio with a moderator and microphones that automatically cut off when speaking time elapses. There would be no audience present for Trump to feed off.
Without the commission’s involvement, the candidates could negotiate directly with television networks to decide the debate terms. CBS News, ABC News, CNN, and Telemundo are acceptable networks for the Biden campaign.
“The commission's failure, yet again, to schedule debates that will be meaningful to all voters — not just those who cast their ballots late in the fall or on Election Day — underscores the serious limitations of its outdated approach,” Dillon said of the commission on presidential debates.
The Biden campaign is pitching the first and only vice-presidential debate for July, after the Republican National Convention. Trump has yet to select a running mate.
Biden’s advanced age, 81, is already a major issue this campaign cycle and two nationally-televised debates could allow him to potentially alleviate concerns over his mental faculties.
New polling by the New York Times and Siena College in partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer showed Trump leading Biden in five swing states and significant voter discontent with Biden’s handling of the economy.
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