President Joe Biden is responding to former President Donald Trump’s debate challenge with a taunt.
In a video posted on X Wednesday morning, Biden said, “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate.”
His comment refers to Trump’s decision to skip every debate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
“Now, he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” he added.
Watch the video below:
Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.
Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported the Biden campaign offered a proposal for presidential debates this year.
The campaign said the president is willing to debate Trump twice ahead of the election. However, it also expressed a desire that the debates be scheduled well ahead of when voting begins — even as early as June. It proposed hold the second debate in “early September at the start of the fall campaign season, early enough to influence early voting, but not so late as to require the candidates to leave the campaign trail in the critical late September and October period.”
Additionally, the campaign said it wants the debate to occur in a TV studio, without an audience, and have microphones that will automatically cut off the candidate when their time is up, and they do not want to have third-party hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included.
The Times also noted, “The letter, signed by Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, and addressed to the Commission on Presidential Debates, notifies the group that Mr. Biden will not be participating in the three general-election debates sponsored by the commission, which are scheduled for Sept. 16, Oct. 1 and Oct. 9.”
As for the networks that would host the debate, the Biden campaign suggested only networks that held a Republican primary debate in 2016 and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 should be able to host one in 2024. The Times points out, “Networks that meet that mark include CBS News, ABC News, CNN and Telemundo.”
In a video post on Truth Social last week, Trump said, “Dear Joe, now that you’ve committed to debate on the ratings-challenged ‘Howard Stern Show,’ let’s set it up right now.”
He added, “I’m ready to go anywhere that you are. We could do it in D.C., even pinpoint the White House, or in New York when your radical-left fascists are finished with the election interference against your political opponent, me, because we’re gonna win and we’re gonna win big.”
