(Headline USA) President Joe Biden officially agreed this week to two debates against former President Donald Trump ahead of November’s election.
The first will be held on June 27 on CNN, and the second on Sept. 10 on ABC News.
The 81-year-old Democrat finally ended speculation over whether the presidential debates would happen at all on Wednesday, taking to social media to challenge Trump to the debates.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden claimed in a video posted on Twitter.
Trump underperformed in the first debate of 2020 after testing positive for COVID-19 three days prior and showing clear signs of weakness. Biden also was suspected to be wearing an earpiece during the debate.
The second debate was universally panned due to the acrimonious bickering of both candidates. Nonetheless, Trump by and large won it, particularly in hindsight due to the fact that Biden brazenly lied about several significant concerns, including his son Hunter’s laptop.
DEBATE: Will Biden apologize for lying to the American people about Hunter’s laptop? At the last debate Biden falsely claimed the laptop was Russian disinformation. pic.twitter.com/vqShChn6Z6
— @amuse (@amuse) May 15, 2024
Biden’s decisiont to agree to the debates comes following a particularly brutal poll that showed him trailing in all but one of the key battleground states by significant margins—perhaps fueling talk among Democrat party officials about the possibility of replacing him.
Committing to a debate schedule could forestall such conversations, or at least throw some speculative pundits off the scent of his imminent demise.
However, the Biden campaign raised some eyebrows by releasing specific requirements that needed to be met for him to participate, including moving up the timeline, banning in-person audiences and stricter enforcement of the debate rules on speaking time.
Biden is afraid to debate in front of a crowd.
That’s only because he can’t draw one. pic.twitter.com/ROw4w4CYCT
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) May 15, 2024
Even so, Trump quickly agreed to take Biden up on the offer, saying on Truth Social that he was “ready and willing to debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times.”
He also urged Biden to agree to two additional debates and, “for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds.”
The former president added, “Just tell me when, I’ll be there. Let’s get ready to rumble!!!”
In a follow-up post, Trump proposed hosting one of the additional debates on Fox News, with anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum serving as the moderators.
Biden’s campaign had not yet responded to this latest offer by Trump at time of publication. They did, however, cast doubt on whether Trump would even participate in the agreed-to debates.
“Donald Trump has a long history of playing games with debates: complaining about the rules, breaking those rules, pulling out at the last minute, or not showing up at all – which he’s done repeatedly in all three cycles he’s run for president,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Biden-Harris 2024 chair, said in a statement.
“No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates,” she continued. “We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta—if he shows up.”
