President Joe Biden is trailing former President Donald Trump badly, according to the latest poll from The New York Times and Siena College.
During the 2020 election, Biden led Trump by over 5 points in mid May.
With the election looming, Biden has suddenly demanded new, historic unprecedented terms for the presidential debates. Trump, surprisingly, has agreed.
On Wednesday Biden announced his refusal to participate in presidential debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organizer for every debate since 1988. In a letter obtained by the Times, Biden’s campaign chair said he would skip the commission’s already-announced debates.
Instead, Biden asked for a news organization to host the debates. He also took issue with the plan to hold the debate in autumn. He suggested two total debates: one in June and one in September.
Trump responded to the letter in an interview with Fox News Digital, calling the proposed dates “fully acceptable to me” and joked about providing his own transportation.
Biden’s campaign has held a grudge against the nonpartisan commission for failing to enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Trump in 2020.
In the four years since, Biden’s team has held talks with television networks — and some Republicans — about ways to circumvent the commission’s grip on presidential debates.
Both Trump and Biden have objected to the commission’s proposed plan to hold the debates in the fall, after the start of early voting.
The Trump campaign said in a statement earlier this month that the scheduled debate “begins AFTER early voting” and that “this is unacceptable” for that reason.
Biden, in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, sought to needle his rival, saying, “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.”
The Democrat suggested that the two candidates could finalize a date in June. He noted that Trump is “free on Wednesdays,” the usual day off from the trial in New York.
Trump has repeatedly dared Biden to debate him, keeping a second podium open at rallies.
“We have to debate because our country is going in the wrong direction so badly,” Trump said last month at a Pennsylvania rally, next to an empty podium next to him. “We have to explain to the American people what the hell is going on.”
Despite Trump’s issues with the debate commission, he and his team have maintained that they don’t care who hosts the debates.
Biden first expressed openness last month to a round of 2024 debates. “I am, somewhere. I don’t know when. But I’m happy to debate him,” Biden told radio host Howard Stern, after months of uncertainty about the future of debates.
Since then, Biden has doubled down on his willingness to debate. After leaving a White House event last week, he told reporters, “Set it up.”