2nd UPDATE, 8:43 AM PT:
Less than 24 hours ago there were no scheduled
debates
between
Joe Biden
and
Donald Trump
. Now President Biden says there are two.
In the last hour, we had the self-described “breaking news” announcement by CNN boss Mark Thompson at the Warner Bros Discovery upfront of one debate on CNN on June 27. That’s the earliest general election debate in a presidential campaign ever. It also comes before both the GOP and Democrats’ conventions in Milwaukee and Chicago in July and August, respectively.
Less than 45 minutes after the CNN announcement, Biden said there is a second debate coming in September.
Taunting Trump earlier his morning with his best Clint Eastwood impersonation to “make my day pal,” (as you can read below) incumbent Biden has just said he will step on the debate stage with the former
Celebrity Apprentice
host on September 10 on Disney-owned ABC.
Trump has accepted the invite to the second debate too, calling it a “great honor.”
With the polls so tight between Biden and Trump, both camps see advantages in getting their guy in the arena. Making the events more brittle is the fact the two men loathe each other.
Of course, there are risks for either candidate with just a few more months until Election Day. An unvarnished and unruly debater, Trump could find his microphone being cut off for time and exactitude. Always prone to a ramble or misspeaking, Biden could find himself hit with his own gaffes.
Besides the fundraising pile-on sure to come, what is clear is that the long established role of the Commission on Presidential Debates in the process has been effectively kiboshed by both the Republican and Democrat. For the first time since 1988, the Commission will be on the sidelines with the campaigns making their own deals with news outlets.
On what is a dark day in Trump’s so-called hush money trial in New York, the former president’s team has said they want even more debates. Whether there will be just two, or even four remains to be seen.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and more, Biden and Trump met for two of their three scheduled debates in 2020. The first debate that cycle went off the rails, with Trump repeatedly interrupting Biden and moderator Chris Wallace exasperated by the encounter. The second debate was a tad more muted.
The debate announcements came together quickly. At the upfront, Thompson said that he wrote to Biden and Trump only this morning, and they accepted soon after. Still left to be announced is who will moderate the debate among CNN’s personalities.
Undoubtedly, CNN and ABC News scored a coup in landing each debate, given that no network had previously served as host when they were sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Instead, the events were pooled across all networks, drawing 73 million viewers.
It’s still unclear whether other networks will carry the debate, or if it will be exclusively on CNN.
Mark Lukasiewicz, the dean of Hofstra University’s School of Communication and a former network executive, wrote on X/Twitter that “as a public service” CNN and ABC “should pledge to make the live feed free to all networks on a non-commercial basis.”
Wallace brought up the same point on CNN this afternoon. “I’m sure we will make it available to everybody else. But our competitors on cable, the broadcast networks. The reason [the debates] get such huge numbers …was because of the fact you couldn’t miss it. It was on every channel. Will it be on every channel? Will ABC, NBC, Fox, MSNBC take the CNN debate. That makes it a very different experience if it is just wall-to-wall coverage on every broadcast outlet.”
Wallace also said that he thought that the debate would be better without an audience, although he thought concerns of having a crowd were overstated.
He said that having an audience-less debate “will make it a cleaner, purer experience. But in terms of the candidates, I don’t think it makes much difference because you are so focused on what you’re saying and what the other guy is about to say, and what the moderator is going to ask, that you’re not sitting there playing to the crowd like it’s a rally.”
UPDATE, 8 AM PT:
Face off!
After a series of salvos online this morning over meeting for debates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are truly ready to rumble.
The current POTUS and the much indicted former president will meet on June 27 on CNN, the cable newser announced. The first match-up between the bitter political rivals will take place in Atlanta at 9 pm ET without a studio audience.
Reveled by CNN chair and CEO Mark Thompson this morning at the Warner Bros Discovery, the debate will air live not just on the cable newser, but also CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Max and CNN.com. No word yet on who the moderators will be in what promises to be a contentious rematch between the men who ran against each other in 2020.
(L-R) Donald Trump and President Joe Biden
Getty Images
PREVIOUSLY, 5:49 AM PT:
Joe Biden challenged Donald Trump to participate in two presidential debates, with his campaign debuting a video in which the president says to his rival, “Make my day pal. I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald.”
Then, Biden says, “I hear you are free on Wednesdays.” That was a swipe at Trump’s criminal trial in New York, which is dark on that day.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, announcing that the president would not be participating in the organization’s planned dates this fall and instead would be taking part in events hosted by news organizations. The campaign is proposing a debate in late June, after Trump’s criminal trial is likely to be over, and in September, before early voting begins. They also are proposing a vice presidential debate in late July, after Trump has picked his running mate and that person has been nominated at the Republican National Convention.
Trump’s campaign has said that he would debate Biden “anytime” and “anywhere.” After Biden’s video, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe 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 – That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!'”
The Biden campaign’s decision to forgo the commission’s planned debates signals an end to a structure that has been in place since the 1980s. The bipartisan commission has held the debates each cycle since 1988, with each event carried across all major broadcast and cable networks, and more recently streaming. But the commission in recent cycles has come under fire from Trump and his campaign, which have attacked its choice of moderators and its planned dates. The Republican National Committee passed a resolution to forgo the events this cycle, but Trump has since expressed a willingness to participate even if the commission was hosting.
In a letter to the commission, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote that the organization’s model for the debates is “out of step with the changes in the structure of our elections.”
Among other things, O’Malley Dillon wrote that the debate schedule starts after many have already cast their ballots early, and the final event has taken place after “tens of millions of Americans will have already voted.” The Trump campaign, which had the same complaint, had proposed earlier dates last cycle, but the commission declined. It recently defended the set schedule for this cycle, noting that the first debate, to take place on Sept. 16, would be the “earliest televised general election debate ever held.”
O’Malley Dillon also said that the debates had become “huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense” that “simply isn’t necessarily conducive to good debates.” “The debates should be conducted for the benefit of American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consumer valuable debate time with noisy spectacles, or approval or jeering.” Instead, she wrote that a “better, more cost-efficient way to proceed” is with a debate in a television studio. That was the case in 1960, when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon participated in a series of televised debates, the first of the modern age. Other debates were held in 1976, 1980 and 1984, but they were hosted by the League of Women Voters.
O’Malley Dillon also complained that the commission was “unable or unwilling to enforce the rules in the 2020 debates.” That was a reference to the first debate last cycle, when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden, to the point of frustration by the event’s moderator, Chris Wallace.
Even though both candidates have now agreed to debate, the devil will be in the details.
That will be no small task. In his statement, Trump called for a large venue; the Biden campaign signalled that it wanted to avoid theatrics.
O’Malley Dillon’s letter made clear that the debates would be one-on-one and not include other third party or independent candidate so as to not squander “debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming president.” That would freeze out Robert Kennedy Jr., who has been polling around 10% in some key swing states. The commission’s threshold for participating in its debates is a polling average of 15%.
Any major media outlet would likely jump at the chance to host a debate, but coming to an agreement on which network would host such a gathering may be one of the thorniest of all issues.
The Biden campaign proposed that it be “hosted by any broadcast organization that hosted a Republican primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated — so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is unacceptable.” That description would mean CBS News and ABC News, as well as Telemundo, would be in the running. It also is unclear whether CNN would be acceptable, as it is a cable and not a broadcast network. But the criteria does exclude MSNBC and Fox News, as well as NBC News, which did not host a GOP debate in the 2016, although sister properties CNBC and Telemundo did.
O’Malley Dillon also proposed that the moderator “should be selected by the broadcast host from among their regular personnel, so as to avoid a ‘ringer’ or partisan.” She also proposed time limits for answers and “alternate turns to speak — so that time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption.” She also said that a candidate’s microphone should be active only when it is his turn to speak.
More to come.