TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — President Joe Biden's campaign is not yet committing to general election debates next year, the latest sign that a staple of modern White House campaigning may not be on the agenda in 2024.
Quentin Fulks, Biden's top deputy campaign manager, told reporters Wednesday that the president's reelection campaign would “look at the schedule” the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates released last month, but the focus for now is on building a national campaign footprint .
“We will have those conversations,” Fulks said at a Democratic news conference at Wednesday's Republican presidential primary debate in Alabama. “But right now,” Fulks said, “our focus is on making sure we continue to build a campaign and infrastructure that will be competitive in 2024.”
Pressed again, Fulks shifted the focus to Trump and the Republican Party's “divisive primaries, where their frontrunner is not attending any debates,” adding that Biden's team is “focusing on what we need to do to win elections next year.” to win.'
Trump has skipped all of the Republican Party's primary debates, including Wednesday's rally at the University of Alabama, citing his wide lead over his Republican rivals as justification. Still, he has said a general election campaign would be different.
“We need to have a debate,” he told Fox News host Bret Baier in June. “He and I should definitely debate. That's what I like. The two of us have to debate.”
The Republican primary candidates who took the stage Wednesday were required to sign a pledge pledging to participate only in debates approved by the Republican National Committee. The commission has not — and likely will not — endorse any general election debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates after voting unanimously in April 2022 to withdraw from such debates after claiming the commission was biased.
The RNC could decide to exempt candidates from the pledge, though the Republican Party's disdain for the committee remains. Trump never signed the pledge.
According to the commission's schedule, three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate are scheduled for next fall. The two major party nominees were scheduled to be invited to a meeting on September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, south of Austin. Nine days later, a vice presidential debate is scheduled at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Presidential debates scheduled for Virginia State University in Petersburg on Oct. 1 and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9 round out the schedule, less than a month before Election Day on Nov. 5.
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Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.