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Trump, Biden agree to two presidential debates in June and September – LifeSite

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(LifeSiteNews) – Democrat President Joe Biden and Republican predecessor-turned-challenger Donald Trump tentatively agreed to two presidential debates after months of speculation that the 2024 election would break the longstanding tradition.

Both candidates have accepted invitations to a June 27 debate hosted by CNN and a September 10 debate hosted by ABC News.

The Associated Press reported that the Biden campaign has sought to exclude third-party candidates such as Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from participating. Kennedy says he will qualify, citing polls showing him just above the 15% support threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Trump, who has recently taken to attacking Kennedy, offered a mixed statement on the question, criticizing Biden’s reluctance to debate the “sharper and far more intelligent” Kennedy while declaring “Junior’ needs more than his name to get on the ‘stage!’”

Trump also “accepted” a third debate on Fox News to which Biden has not yet agreed, which the Biden camp called an example of the former president “playing games.”

Several unusual circumstances of the 2024 election so far left most observers doubtful the major party nominees would ever face off on a stage this year. Trump infamously refused to debate any of his Republican challengers in the GOP primary, setting a precedent Democrats could have cited to avoid debating Trump in the general election, given ongoing concerns about the 81-year-old Biden’s energy and mental ability.

For months, Trump has expressed eagerness to debate Biden only to elicit dismissive and noncommittal responses, further reinforcing assumptions that no debate would happen.

Now that at least two debates have been confirmed, however, speculation has arisen on both sides as to how those debates will turn out.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, told Fox’s Sean Hannity that the debates will be “rigged so heavily in Joe Biden’s favor,” but she has “full confidence that Donald Trump will outperform” Biden anyway. Meanwhile, Axios’ Alex Thompson reported that Biden’s advisers are “split” on the political wisdom of the move.

“Basically, there are some advisers and you saw Nancy Pelosi sort of speak to this yesterday when she said that she would advise nobody to get on a stage with Donald Trump, but the president has decided what he wants to do,” he said. “Now, some of his advisers think he’s going to be fine, but there are definitely some people in the Biden camp that don’t see that, that basically see this as more risky than, than not.”

The Biden campaign may view the debates as a high-risk, high-reward proposition in which simply staying alert and coherent could dispel fears about his age and mind. Whether that would be enough to upend the fundamentals of the race is another question, however.

Polls currently indicate a popular dead heat but a 303-235 victory for Trump in the Electoral College, although voters also say that convictions in Trump’s various ongoing legal battles would make them less likely to support him. However, deep dissatisfaction with his job performance and Biden’s refusal to moderate his least-popular policies, along with his age-related issues, give the current president comparable electoral challenges.

At the moment, the aforementioned polls suggest Kennedy draws roughly the same number of votes from both Trump and Biden. But given how close many are predicting the election to be, concern persists over how even small defections could impact the outcome.

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