By Olivia Land | New York Post
President Biden said he is willing to debate former President Donald Trump twice ahead of the election — but only if Trump agrees to his strict terms.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and now he wants to debate me again,” Biden said in the fiery video released Wednesday.
“Well, make my day, pal,” Biden, 81, added.
The Biden camp, however, rejected allowing the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to run the face-offs, despite it having done so since 1988, a letter obtained by the New York Times revealed.
Instead of the commission debates on Sept. 16, Oct. 1 and Oct. 9, Biden wants to go toe to toe with Trump on a more compressed schedule — with the first debate as early as June, campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon wrote.
“I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden chided in the video, referring to Trump’s ongoing criminal trial in New York, which is on recess Wednesdays.
The second debate was proposed for early September, “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,” O’Malley Dillon explained.
The Biden team also wants the debates to be on stages inside a television studio with microphones that automatically cut out when the speaker’s time elapses — and no live audience, the Times noted.
The proposed debates would also exclude Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and any other third-party candidates.
Trump responded to Biden’s challenge in a Truth Social post, saying he was “ready and willing” to debate him.
“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also the WORST President in the history of the United States, by far. It’s time for a debate so that he can explain to the American People his highly destructive Open Border Policy, new and ridiculous EV Mandates, the allowance of Crushing Inflation, High Taxes, and his really WEAK Foreign Policy, which is allowing the World to ‘Catch on Fire,” he wrote.
The Trump campaign has long asked Biden to commit to debates in the 2024 cycle
The altered schedule could benefit Biden, who is trailing Trump in the polls.
The Democrats’ emphasis on early voting by mail gave Biden a strong edge over Trump ahead of the nail-biting 2020 election, the Times noted.
“The commission’s failure, yet again, to schedule debates that will be meaningful to all voters — not just those who cast their ballots late in the fall or on Election Day — underscores the serious limitations of its outdated approach,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in the letter.