Joe Biden and Donald Trump
US President Joe Biden announced on Friday that he will debate Donald Trump, his Republican opponent in the November election.
“I am somewhere. I don’t know when”, the Democratic president stated during an interview.
“I’m happy to debate Donald Trump”, Biden continued.
The remarks were Biden’s most direct yet on the possibility of a presidential debate. Biden had not previously committed to debating Trump, saying last month that it would be contingent on the former president’s actions.
Trump, who refused to debate his rivals before winning the Republican primary last month, has recently challenged Biden to a one-on-one debate, offering to debate the incumbent Democrat ‘anytime, anywhere, anyplace’.
Earlier this month, Trump’s top two campaign advisers sent a letter to an independent commission that normally sanctions such events, calling for an accelerated debate schedule, holding more than the usual three.
Their statement proposed that the impartial Commission on Presidential Debates conduct debates for the current race, as it has done in every election cycle since 1988.
Biden’s team is concerned that once on stage, Trump will not follow the Commission’s rules, and some Biden advisers say they would rather not elevate Trump by putting him on the same stage as the Democratic incumbent.
When asked about Trump’s request to debate Biden at a trip to Las Vegas in early February, Biden responded, “If I were him, I would want to debate me as well. He’s got nothing to do”.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden and Trump squared off in two televised debates.
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