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President Joe Biden trolled Donald Trump about his ongoing criminal hush-money trial as he dared his rival to go head-to-head with him in a presidential debate.
“I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” the president said, a reference to the weekly day off from the trial in Manhattan criminal court.
After a rapid back-and-forth between the president and former president, the two men agreed to face-off on stage for the first time since 2020 on 27 June. The debate will be hosted by CNN at the network’s Atlanta headquarters, with a moderator to be announced closer to the time. No audience will be present, the network said in a press release.
In a post on X, Mr Biden said his and Mr Trump’s campaigns have also agreed to a second debate on 10 September to be hosted by ABC.
“Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years,” he said.
The two candidates’ commitment to a pair of debates came after a rapid back-and-forth on social media and in other public statements by the two presidential campaigns.
Mr Biden fired the starting pistol on Wednesday morning in a video released by his campaign, in which he proposed a pair of debates, one in June and another in October.
The video shows the president declaring that Mr Trump had lost both of the debates they participated in during the 2020 election cycle.
He went on to jibe at the former president’s refusal to show up for a single debate during the 2024 Republican primary, claiming that Mr Trump keeps saying Mr Biden is unwilling to debate with him.
“Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again? Well, make my day, pal – I’ll even do it twice,” he said. “So let’s pick the date’s Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
Mr Trump fired back at the challenge by branding “Crooked Joe Biden” as the “WORST debater I have ever faced” in a characteristic Truth Social rant.
“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also the WORST President in the history of the United States, by far,” he said.
“It’s time for a debate so that he can explain to the American People his highly destructive Open Border Policy, new and ridiculous EV Mandates, the allowance of Crushing Inflation, High Taxes, and his really WEAK Foreign Policy, which is allowing the World to ‘Catch on Fire’.”
Mr Trump said that he was “Ready and Willing” to agree to the two debates in June and September and claimed he 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”.
“Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’,” he posted.
Soon after, Mr Biden took Mr Trump at his word for being willing to debate him “anywhere, any time, any place” and revealed that he had accepted an invite from CNN for a debate at 9pm ET on 27 June in Atlanta.
“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,” Mr Biden posted on X.
Donald Trump told Fox News Digital that he had accepted the invitation and is “looking forward to being in beautiful Atlanta”.
The first debate will now take place before either candidate has even officially been named their respective party’s presidential nominee, with the RNC taking place in July and the DNC in August.
Mr Biden’s proposal for the first debate to take place in June bypasses the nonpartisan commission that has organised and hosted a trio of general election presidential debates for decades in favour of a pair of sessions under terms negotiated directly between his campaign and that of Mr Trump.
In a letter to the debate commission obtained by The Independent, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said the debates should take place in a television studio with both candidates and a moderator sans audience, just like the first groundbreaking 1960 debate between then-senator John F Kennedy and then-vice president Richard Nixon.
“The Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates,” she wrote. “The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home – not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering.”
She added that the decision was influenced by failures in past years by the nonpartisan group, including the commission’s inability to enforce the rules to keep candidates within their allotted speaking time.
The outcome from that failure, she said, “was far from – indeed entirely inconsistent with – the orderly and informative process the voters deserved in 2020 and should be able to expect in 2024”.
The Biden campaign has also suggested that the debates be split between two broadcast networks which also participated in both Republican and Democratic primary debates in 2016 and 2020, limiting the choices to CNN, ABC News, Telemundo and CBS News, with moderators chosen from the host networks’ “regular personnel”. That last point is expected to be contested by Mr Trump, who has regularly complained about debate moderators.
But the timing of the two debates might be amenable to Mr Trump, who has often groused about the late timing of the 2020 debates, citing the increased prevalence of postal balloting and early voting in modern elections. Last month, his two senior campaign advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, said the timing of this year’s debates as proposed was “unacceptable”.
“We are committed to making this happen with or without the presidential debate commission,” they said. “We extend an invitation to every television network in America that wishes to host a debate, and we once again call on Joe Biden’s team to work with us to set one up as soon as possible.”
Ms O’Malley Dillon appeared to echo Mr Trump’s criticisms in her letter, writing that the schedule “has debates that begin after the American people have a chance to cast their vote early, and doesn’t conclude until after tens of millions of Americans will have already voted”.
“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,” she added.
A source familiar with the former president’s thinking told The Independent that Mr Trump genuinely believes he can best Mr Biden in head-to-head sessions because he has internalised his frequent claim that the 46th president suffers from dementia.
There is no evidence that Mr Biden has such a condition. But Mr Trump, the source said, believes the debates will give him a chance to make his successor look addled and aged.
To that end, Mr Trump’s campaign team has pushed for more debates. In a memorandum released to the press, Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita have now proposed “a debate in June, a debate in July, a debate in August, and a debate in September” – two more than what has been agreed to as of early Wednesday.
It’s unclear whether the Biden campaign will be amenable to the amended request.
