Will Biden and Trump face one another in presidential debates? There’s no commitment yet
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Nikki Haley is challenging Donald Trump to a debate. Trump challenges Joe Biden to debate. And Biden laughs off Trump, at least publicly.
But there are real questions about whether any of them will face each other on stage this year.
Biden’s reelection campaign has repeatedly declined to participate in debates with Trump, his likely opponent in November’s general election. Trump, meanwhile, has feuded with the Republican National Committee and refused to participate in the primary debates. In 2020, he objected to the rules of the nonpartisan commission that has organized general election debates since 1976.
While any disputes could be resolved by the fall, the uncertainty reflects how both Biden and Trump are increasingly choosing to reach voters in environments they control, at the expense of nonpartisan interviews or events where they may face unfriendly questions. Both Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, have at times mixed up names and countries and face widespread doubts from voters about their ages and readiness.
There is also still animosity over how their debates went four years ago.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a longtime Biden confidante, noted that he was in the audience for the chaotic September 2020 debate when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden and moderator Chris Wallace.
Coons lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “That was bad.”
He then wondered whether a general election debate this year would be worth it.
“It’s challenging to imagine, given that the RNC and the Trump campaign have said they want nothing to do with the Commission on Presidential Debates and given his past behavior, it’s hard to imagine that this would be productive,” Coons said. “But this is ultimately a judgment call for President Biden.”
Debates are not mandatory, but are considered a traditional test for candidates who do not have aids or teleprompters. The first televised presidential debate took place in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, but it did not become a recurring event until 1976 when the League of Women Voters began sponsoring presidential debates. They are now sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 that sets out the rules for each debate and selects the location, dates and moderators.
Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the committee, says it is too early to completely write off the prospect of debates in 2024.
“There’s a history of candidates not being happy,” he said. “Despite that, it has been part of American culture since 1976. There is no doubt that the American people expect the men and women who want to be president of the United States to take the stage and answer questions and debate.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board, also said Biden and Trump should debate.
“They are about democracy,” Khanna said of the debates. “And it is important that the American people understand the different views of the candidates. Absolutely, the president should debate in the three fall debates that are traditional, and Donald Trump should debate and not be afraid to do so.”
While many political observers are looking ahead to a rematch between Biden and Trump, Haley is still trying to capture the former president’s attention during the Republican primaries. The former U.N. ambassador has challenged Trump to “man up” for what she calls the “ultimate mental competency test,” referring to the exam for early-onset dementia and other cognitive disorders he took at the White House. Her campaign has had someone dressed in an inflatable chicken costume show up at events holding a sign that reads “Trump Too Chicken To Debate.”
But the Republican National Committee stopped scheduling primary debates after the fourth debate in Alabama in December. The final one-on-one debate between Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was hosted by CNN on January 10 in Iowa.
Trump forces Haley to drop out of the primaries and instead harasses Biden. He called on Biden to start debating now “for the good of the country,” despite the general election being eight months away.
‘I would like to debate him now, because we should debate. We have to debate for the good of the country,” Trump said on The Dan Bongino Show last week, saying Biden “can’t do it because he can’t talk.”
Biden then laughed and said, “If I were him, I’d want to debate me too. He has nothing else to do.”
Biden’s staff has repeatedly declined to commit to his participation in debates. His campaign visited Alabama before the Republican Party’s final primary debate to hold a press conference. Asked whether Biden himself would debate in the fall, deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said officials would “look at the schedule.”
“We will have those conversations,” Fulks said. “But right now,” Fulks added, “our focus is on making sure we continue to build a campaign and infrastructure that will be competitive in 2024.”
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who was the Republican Party nominee in 2012 and participated in three debates against President Barack Obama, said Trump and Biden “of course” should debate.
“This is a democracy of the United States of America. We need to listen to the people who want to be president and see if they have mental capacity and see what their positions are on certain issues,” Romney said. “It’s one thing to say you passed a competency test. But it’s another thing to actually get the American people to listen to your debate. I want to hear from both President Biden and President Trump.”
Romney dismissed Trump’s vendetta against the debate committee, as well as the Biden campaign’s noncommittal stance on debates, as “apologies.”
“People always find excuses for why they don’t want to debate,” Romney said. “But you’ve got some old guys who don’t want people to see how old they are.”
There is at least one example – albeit in a key swing state rather than a national election – of a Democrat skipping debates and still winning the election.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs declined to debate Republican Kari Lake in 2022 on the grounds that Lake, a former television news anchor known for her polished on-screen presence, had spread falsehoods about elections, calling her staff Lake a “ conspiracy theorist’. ” Hobbs won a tight race anyway.
In addition to his rallies where he sometimes addresses cheering supporters for two hours at a time, Trump has also tried to pursue viral moments: visiting a fraternity before a college football game, going to a sports bar and attending mixed-martial arts events. .
Biden, meanwhile, has held fewer large gatherings and instead focused on small events, such as recent stops at a boba tea shop and a family’s kitchen. His team argues this is more effective in a changed media landscape because TikTok videos and Instagram stories from those events reach more voters than television ads and speeches.
Patrick Stewart is a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas and has written a book entitled “The Audience Decides: Applause-Cheers, Laughter and Cheers during Debates in the Trump Era.” He said debates may be even more necessary in the age of deepfakes, in which manipulated video or digital representation is generated by artificial intelligence.
“I trust my eyes if I can go ahead and watch it in real time,” Stewart said. “That’s why they’re so important, because viewers can make their own decision by looking at the candidates.”
But Jacob Thompson, 29, a firefighter and cop from Knoxville, Tennessee, who recently stopped by a Trump rally in Las Vegas, said Trump doesn’t really need to debate anymore because voters are familiar with his positions and platform.
“We all know the real Donald Trump. And we are all very proud of him,” he said. “People are offended by the things he says. And there are a lot of things he says that I wish he didn’t do. But I base my opinion on what he has done.”
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Gomez Licon reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Darlene Superville in Las Vegas and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.