Biden, Trump agree on debates in June and September, but working out details could be challenging
The Hindu
US presidential election 2024: Biden and Trump agree on two debates, bypassing non partisan commission, with disagreements on logistics and rules.
U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on May 15 appeared to agree on a timetable to participate in two debates before the November general election in the United States, as the Democrat announced that he would not participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organised them for more than three decades.
Mr. Biden's campaign has proposed that media organisations directly organise the debates with the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, with the first to be held in late June and the second in September before early voting begins.
Mr. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, said he was “Ready and Willing to Debate” Mr. Biden at the two proposed times in June and September.
Still the two camps remain far part on key questions of how to organise the debates, including agreeing on media partners, moderators, location and rules — some of the very questions that prompted the formation of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987.
Mr. Biden's proposal would exclude third-party candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mr. Biden’s campaign has long held a grudge against the non-partisan commission for failing to evenly apply its rules during the 2020 Biden-Trump matchups — most notably when it didn’t enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Mr. Trump and his entourage — and Mr. Biden’s team has held talks with television networks and some Republicans about ways to circumvent the Commission’s grip on presidential debates.
Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates on May 15 to say that the president’s campaign objected to the fall dates selected by the Commission, which will come after Americans begin to vote, repeating a complaint also voiced by the Mr. Trump campaign. She also voiced frustrations over the rule violations and the Commission’s insistence on holding the debates before a live audience.
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