USA Today (“Defying election tradition, Biden proposes debating Trump twice, wants first one in June.“) buries the lede:
President Joe Biden says he is willing to debate Donald Trump twice before the general election — and he wants the first one to take place in June, setting the stage for the earliest head-to-head competition among the major parties’ candidate in modern history.
Biden’s campaign informed the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has hosted the matches since 1988, that it would not be participating in a series of debates scheduled for the fall.
To me, that’s the obviously headline. It takes quite a while for the story to circle back to it, with an explanation:
[A statement by the Biden team] complained that the commission’s debates are structured like an “entertainment spectacle and not a serious exchange of ideas that reflect the enormous stakes of the election” and dinged the organization for past failings to enforce its own rules.
While I take the point, there’s essentially no way to enforce the rules without the moderators appearing to take sides. There’s a pretty long history of candidates talking over their opponents, crowding their space when speaking, and otherwise attempting to impose their will. Moderators usually issue gentle warnings but kind of let it happen. On very rare occasions, they shut off microphones or otherwise try to dominate. Invariably, that leads supporters of the affected candidate to cry Foul.
Biden may well get his way, though.
In a statement, the Biden campaign said it wants the first to debate to take place June, when Trump’s hush money trail in New York is “likely to be over” and after Biden returns from the Group of Seven Summit in mid June before Republicans officially award their nomination. It proposed a second debate in September “prior to the beginning of early voting,” echoing a Trump campaign demand.
It also proposed a vice presidential debate to take place in late July after the Republicans officially nominate Trump and his running mate to be on their ticket.
The general election involved three presidential debates and a vice presidential debate for nearly two decades, until one was abruptly called off in 2020 when Trump rejected the commission’s plan to make it virtual following his positive COVID-19 diagnosis. The last time that two debates were held was in 1996. Both matches and the vice presidential debate took place in October that year.
Debates put forward by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates — the corporation that has traditionally picked the times, locations and moderators of sparring matches — were due to begin on September 16.
[…]
Trump’s team had previously called for earlier debates on account of early voting. And the GOP candidate accepted Biden’s proposed timeframe for the debates in a social media post almost immediately.
The presumptive GOP nominee said he was “Ready and Willing to Debate” him “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,” he wrote. “That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’”
It did not take long for news outlets to begin making offers.
“I’ve received and accepted an invitation from @CNN for a debate on June 27th. Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place,” Biden said in an X post.
In a video posted to social media earlier that morning, Biden had taken a jab at Trump for refusing to participate in a single Republican primary debate this cycle. He said he’d make good on a promise to debate Trump, telling him, “Make my day pal, I’ll even do it twice.
“Let’s pick the dates Donald, I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden said, making a veiled reference to Trump’s ongoing criminal trial.
I’d honestly prefer Biden not engage in such juvenalia. His selling point is being the grownup in the room, in strong contrast to Trump the toddler. Regardless, Trump is at least pretending to be eager to debate Biden early and often.
The setup, though, is likely to be the sticking point more than the schedule.
Biden’s campaign further stipulated in a statement that the president plans to participate in debates that are hosted by news outlets.
[…]
It said it wants the first debate to be hosted by a television network that hosted a Republican primary debate in 2016 that participated in and a Democratic debate in 2020 that Biden participated in “so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable.” They should also be “one-on-one” the Biden campaign said, “allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College.”
The latter stipulation was intended to ensure that third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are not allowed on stage. Prior debates have had a 15% debate threshold. Kennedy had 8% support in the latest USA TODAY/Suffolk University survey.
Keeping minor candidates off the stage is likely something both major candidates will endorse. Trump may well not agree to having antagonistic journalists, ala Candy Crowley, serve as moderators.
