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Biden challenges Trump to 2 debates but won’t participate in nonpartisan commission's debates

https://apnews.com/article/2024-election-presidential-debates-biden-trump-6b1d1dbb2ed61c7637041b23662d7da8

President Joe Biden says he won’t participate in the campaign debates sponsored by a nonpartisan commission, instead challenging Republican Donald Trump to a pair of debates.

Biden challenges Trump to 2 debates but won’t participate in nonpartisan commission's debates

Biden’s campaign proposed that the first debate between the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees be held in late June and the second in September before early voting begins. 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.

27 comments

cogman

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The terms here are how the commission should have been running debates from the beginning.

Trump will never agree to these terms as they undercut his entire debate strategy. With no crowd there, Trump can't feed off their responses. With the mic time limit he can't interrupt and interject like he wants to do. That leaves him with his rambling disconnected thoughts.

Blackbeard

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Amen to that. I DESPISE how debates have morphed into glorified episodes of American Idol.

Admittedly, this is probably self serving because Biden stumbles enough that his performance would be made into a 'bIdEn oLd!' spectacle by the blowhard and his Fox News minions, but debates should NEVER have devolved into the WWE shitshows they've been for the last decade. That format is partly to blame for Trump's rise to power, because they basically rolled out the red carpet for a bloviating showman to gobble up all the oxygen in the room.

cogman

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Yeah, and that will be another problem. Even with this format, most people aren't going to watch the debate. What they'll watch is clips from the debate from their favorite media outlet.

Biden isn't a great debater, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of clips of him looking like an idiot. And, well, Trump is an idiot and his supporters know and don't really care about that... So... Yeah. These debates will ultimately be pointless. The two are known entities that really don't need exploring. A format change, though, would hopefully help with the 2028 elections.

Blackbeard

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Couldn't have said it better myself. At least this puts the Commission on notice that they're shitting the bed and dramatic changes are expected.

aphlamingphoenix

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I worry that not doing debates for this cycle would be the start of a tradition of not doing them anymore, ever. To some degree, I'm in favor of doing them even knowing they're only ceremonial.

But even as I write that out, I wonder if the whole thing needs a facelift. This kind of televised debate was made up in a world where television had the broadest media reach. It was a public service to broadcast debates, and there was a time when that might make up the majority of what a voter knew about the candidates.

Now we have the Internet and no need to shoehorn a Very Formal Debate into a prime time slot. Debates could be shorter and focused on the details of particular issues, allowing the candidates to converse more directly on topics. I would listen to a whole year of weekly podcast episodes like that leading up to an election.

Blackbeard

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You may be correct, but if we still have free and fair elections in 2028 (I have my doubts), and if we have 2 brand new candidates, the demand for a debate will be higher. I just don't think anyone wants to hear from these two men, in particular, because we've already heard everything they have to say.

givesomefucks

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trump allowing Dems to lower the bar again...

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he will not participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organized them for more than three decades and instead proposed two debates with former President Donald Trump to be held earlier in the year.

3 debates was the standard.

And they were always outside the parties control.

Now it sounds like Dems get one and Republicans get one. Both will win the one hosted by their party and declare the other biased.

And it solidifies the two private parties and prevents anyone else from having a chance.

disguy_ovahea

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The problem is the way they handled the 2016 and 2020 debates. They were toothless at holding Trump accountable for his time, allowing him to ramble on and talk over his opponents. Non-partisan is the way to go, but they should turn the fucking mic off once the candidate’s time has lapsed.

dhork

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To be fair, though, three debates is excessive this time around. We know where these people stand. The debates are really a chance to assess their mental fitness, and two will be fine for that.

The non-partisan commission shot itself in the foot by not taking early voting into account in its scheduling. If we are going to have debates, it makes no sense to schedule them after voting starts in some states.

logicbomb

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More background on this "non-partisan" commission.

The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to "take control of the presidential debates". The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul G. Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf. At a 1987 press conference announcing the commission's creation, Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates, and Kirk said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates.

It is not non-partisan. It is bipartisan. That's an important difference. Saying that it's nonpartisan is misinformation.

Third parties have often criticized exclusion of their candidates from debates, due to the CPD's rule (established in 2000) that candidates must garner at least 15% support across five national polls to be invited to the national debates. The last candidate from outside the two major parties to participate in a CPD-sponsored debate was Ross Perot, who polled sufficiently high in his 1992 presidential campaign to debate George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in all three debates; Perot's running mate, James Stockdale, also participated in the vice presidential debate. When Perot ran again in 1996, the CPD declined to invite him to the debates, finding that the Reform Party candidate had no "realistic chance to win" the election.

So, it's an organization run by the two major parties that explicitly tries to keep third parties from participating in the debates.

ZapBeebz_

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There is literally nothing trump could say or do that will make his supporters question his mental fitness. All these will do is give them the chance to rip on Biden for absolutely anything he does. Because they don't care what's actually going on, they just want to cut together clips and then claim Biden is somehow more senile than Trump

Habahnow

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The debates are more for on the fence voters. Some people have slowly started to leave the MAGA bubble as the lies stack up high, and they continue to get annoyed with Trump. For people on the fence in voting for Biden, this is an opportunity to see that he's not a senile old man as portrayed by the right.

givesomefucks

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Oh ok...

So let's put the parties in charge.

Because Republicans aren't a complete shit show and the Dems didn't just schedule their convention so late that Biden won't make the deadline to get on the ballot in every state...

But I'd love a source for the non-partisian debates being scheduled after early voting starts.

I've never heard anything about that.

elliot_crane

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But I'd love a source for the non-partisian debates being scheduled after early voting starts.

I've never heard anything about that.

The article itself mentions that both campaigns have an issue with the debate commission scheduling after early voting. But let’s assume the AP is not a credible source and didn’t fact check this.

How long before the election does early voting begin? Looks like it’s 50 days in some instances:

Early in-person voting may begin as early as 50 days before the election … The average start date is 27 days before the election.

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/early-in-person-voting

So let’s look at how well the commission did in 2020. Election Day was Nov. 3, 2020; 50 days prior was Sept. 14, 2020 and 27 days prior was Oct. 7, 2020.

Based on the schedule here: https://www.debates.org/debate-history/2020-debates/ there were three debates:

Sept. 29, 2020: Biden v. Trump
Oct. 7, 2020: Harris v. Pence
Oct. 22, 2020: Biden v. Trump

So, yeah, not a single one of those dates is before the absolute start of early voting, and two of them are on or after the average start.

Seems like a valid and factual complaint to me.

givesomefucks

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But you're acting like the nonpartisan commission picked the dates with no input from the parties...

That people who vote day 1 of early voting aren't sure of who they should vote for...

And that the parties should be in charge of it, despite the Dems deciding to not declare their candidate till after the deadline to get on some states ballots?

The ones that demanded a state violate their state law to move a primary, and when they wouldn't removed all their delegates...

You didn't prove anything about the "late" debates being the commissions decision, or why we should give control to an organization thats clearly terrible about scheduling ...

elliot_crane

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I didn’t set out to prove anything or argue any point other than the complaint about the debates being scheduled after early voting starts are rooted in fact.

In fact, the only thing I really did was provide relevant sources to indicate that, yes, the debate commission has a history of scheduling at times after early voting starts.

givesomefucks

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But giving control to the parties isnt an improvement...

They can't even schedule their own events to make sure their candidate gets on the ballot.

Habahnow

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In this case, yes it is an improvement, we get 2 debates before early voting is a huge improvement over only 1. Yes, long term I agree with you that I'd rather a 3rd party host the events, but right now for this election it seems they need to get their crap together.

elliot_crane

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Biden and Trump both accepted an invitation to debate from CNN and another from ABC, both within hours of this AP story going live. While you’ve got some valid points here regarding incompetence and mismanagement we’ve seen from the major parties of late, in this particular instance it seems like it worked out.

I’d also like to point out once again that my original comment was not trying to argue whether or not this was a good thing, I was providing a source showing that the debate commission has a long history of scheduling debates after the start of early voting. You even asked for a source on that, hence my reply.

FlowVoid

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Now it sounds like Dems get one and Republicans get one. Both will win the one hosted by their party and declare the other biased.

No, the debates will be hosted by CNN and ABC.

Rapidcreek

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"I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”

Burn!

snooggums

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Biden should not be debating an insurrectionist or giving Trump any king of validity as a candidate. He should be telling Trump to spend more time sleeping so he can stay awake at his criminal trials.

Debating Trump is just normalizing insurrection.

dhork

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It's not Biden who is giving Trump viability as a candidate, it is the Republican voters who are giving him viability as their nominee. They have seen all the stuff he has done and say "We need more of that!"

Habahnow

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I agree, in theory, but the fact of the matter is that the voters determine who can be president, and there's a large bloc that view Trump as a potential president. Ignoring the elephant in the room seems extremely problematic, especially when the right indicates that Biden is too senile, and incoherent to be president as it feeds into their message.

snooggums

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The voting bloc that view Trump as a potential president don't matter, because they are unreasonable and certainly won't be swayed.

Taking a stand against Trump as a candidate by pointing out reality could sway the reasonable, but apparently uninformed, people that need it to be reminded out that an insurrectionist who is facing a massive number of felonies can't even stay awake in court.

Doing debates because of MAGA idiots validates the MAGA idiots. Acknowledge they exist, but don't cater to their message.

Uniquitous

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He's insisting on STFU protocols. Trump will never agree.