The Biden campaign has firmly declined the idea of scheduling additional debates with former President Trump beyond the two that were already agreed upon for this summer. This decision follows a suggestion from Trump’s campaign to hold more debates.
“Donald Trump has a history of manipulating debate settings: complaining about the rules, breaking them, withdrawing at the last minute, or simply not showing up, as he has done in all three presidential cycles he’s participated in,” said Biden campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon in a statement.
O’Malley Dillon added, “Trump has repeatedly stated his willingness to debate President Biden anytime and anywhere, often with varying degrees of clarity and grammatical correctness. President Biden’s conditions for two one-on-one debates were made clear, and Trump accepted these terms.”
“We are done with the games. No more chaos, and no further discussions about additional debates,” she asserted. “We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta—assuming he appears.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Biden campaign proposed holding two general election debates: one in June and another in September. Both candidates quickly agreed, with the first debate set for June 27 on CNN and the second on September 10 on ABC.
The Trump campaign responded by requesting additional debates in July and August through a memo addressed to O’Malley Dillon, arguing that more debates would give voters greater exposure to each candidate’s records and visions for the future.
In an attempt to exert pressure, Trump announced via Truth Social that he had accepted an invitation to participate in an October 2 debate hosted by Fox News.
Fox News has not yet commented on this development.
The Biden campaign suggested collaborating with media outlets that previously hosted debates for the 2016 GOP primaries, which included Trump, and the 2020 Democratic primaries, which included Biden, to avoid any perceived bias. This proposal implicitly excludes Fox News, which did not host any Democratic primary debates in 2020.
Notably, both campaigns decided to bypass the Commission on Presidential Debates, the traditional facilitator of presidential debates since 1988.
This announcement coincides with a New York Times poll indicating that Trump is leading Biden in five out of six key battleground states, which could be crucial in determining the outcome of the upcoming election.