Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign is reportedly committing to three scheduled debates against President Trump in the fall — but not more, as President Trump has been pushing for.
According to the Washington Post on Monday, a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates written by Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon says that Biden will participate in the debates planned by the commission on Sept. 29, Oct. 15, and Oct. 22. Additionally, the former VP’s running mate, who has yet to be announced, would participate in a vice presidential debate scheduled for Oct. 7.
“Joe Biden looks forward to facing Donald Trump in a multi-debate series that the American people have come to expect from their leaders; we hope that President Trump would not break that tradition or make excuses for a refusal to participate,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in the letter addressed to the Commission on Presidential debates and obtained by the Post.
The Biden campaign and the CPD did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.
The Biden campaign’s later was issued a week after Politico first reported that the Trump campaign is putting Rudy Giuliani in charge of advocating for more debates against Biden this fall, contradicting the President’s threat to boycott the debates last year. Both Giuliani and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale are demanding that the debates begin prior to the start of early voting, a fourth debate be added to the schedule and both campaigns have input on vetting moderators.
In its new letter to the CPD, the Biden campaign slammed the “new position” of President’s re-election campaign as a “debate distraction,” adding that Trump is “afraid of facing questions from a neutral moderator” given how he will only debate if he can pick the moderators.
‘The Trump campaign proposal for elaborate negotiations is merely an effort to dodge fair, even-handed debates,” O’Malley Dillon wrote, according to the Post.
The Post reported that O’Malley Dillon also requested that the CPD confirm debate arrangements in an effort to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus and to have one of the debates conducted in a town hall format.
“During his primary campaign, Vice President Biden welcomed direct questions from uncommitted voters on a frequent basis, and we think it is time that President Trump faced such questioning himself,” O’Malley Dillon wrote, according to the Post. “We know that voters have many, many questions for the President.”
