Death, taxes, and third-party candidates asking to debate every four years.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have agreed to two debates: one in June on CNN and one in September on ABC.
However, Biden’s campaign has argued for blocking all third-party candidates, including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The debates should be one-on-one, allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, wrote. “Not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming President.”
MSNBC host Chuck Todd said that Robert F. Kennedy, with his speech impediment, would make Biden look better.
“I think if you’ve ever spent a lot of time watching Robert Kennedy Jr. speak, I think if you’re Joe Biden, you’re going to want him on the debate stage. I think there will be a point in the fall that they will actually see that as an asset. I’m sort of in the minority on this,” Todd said Wednesday on MSNBC.
“I think it will weirdly help Biden look less, you know, any of his issues come across less because I think the… I don’t think a lot of people realize this about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And I, I think it’ll be interesting. But if he’s on the… I’m not ruling out the possibility he makes it to the second debate.”
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell added, “He has a vocal issue. It’s an ailment.”
It remains uncertain whether Kennedy will pull more from Trump or Biden.
In any case, Kennedy may fall short of the networks’ requirements for the debates. To qualify for the June debate, candidates must receive at least 15% in four network-approved polls of registered or likely voters. Plus, the candidates need to secure ballot access in enough states to win 270 votes in the Electoral College.
They would need to clear similar hurdles ahead of the September debate.
The first debate will held June 27 at CNN’s studios in Atlanta, the population center of a critical battleground state. “To ensure candidates may maximize the time allotted in the debate, no audience will be present,” CNN said in a statement. Moderators will be announced later.
The second debate will take place on Sept. 10 and will be hosted by ABC. The network has yet to detail where that debate will take place, the format or its moderators.
Todd said that Kennedy has more than enough time to meet the requirements by September.
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The networks have yet to announce who will moderate the debates, a decision that could prompt objections.
Biden has already been making demands, besides just asking the networks to exclude Kennedy.
The Biden campaign outlined its own preferences in a letter Wednesday. It wants candidates’ microphones muted when they aren’t recognized to speak to promote “orderly proceeding,” and it is opposed to live studio audiences.
“The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.
There should also, she wrote, “be firm time limits for answers, and alternate turns to speak — so that the time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption.”
On the other side, Trump’s campaign is pushing for more debates. In a memorandum Wednesday, senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles sent a memo to Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon saying, “we believe there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves.” They proposed holding one debate per month, with events in June, July, August and September, in addition to the vice presidential debate.
“Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate,” they wrote.
Trump has also expressed other preferences. In an interview Wednesday morning with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, he agreed the debates “should go two hours” and also said he’d prefer if the men stand instead of sit.
“A stand-up podium is important,” he said, adding he thinks Biden wants to sit. He also said he would prefer the events take place in larger venues, before a live audience.
“It’s just more exciting,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.