President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign rejected two additional debates on Friday that former President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign says it agreed to do.
One used to be an offer for a presidential debate hosted by way of NBC News and Telemundo. The different used to be for a vice presidential debate hosted by way of Fox News at Virginia State University, a traditionally Black school.
“I have accepted a fourth Presidential Debate against Crooked Joe Biden, this time with NBC & Telemundo,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday afternoon. “It is important as Republicans that we WIN with our Great Hispanic Community, who Biden has devastated with Crippling Inflation, High Gas Prices, Crime in our Streets, and Border Chaos. … This is all in addition to our accepting an invitation from Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum of Fox News to host the Vice Presidential Debate at Virginia State University, or another venue, in Virginia, to be named later.”
A spokesperson for NBC News showed that the community had introduced a debate to each campaigns.
Trump’s acceptance of debates that might have reached higher Latino and Black audiences gave the impression aimed, at phase, at goading the Biden marketing campaign, which has been suffering to connecting with those communities that had been crucial to his election in 2020.
“The debate about debates is over,” a Biden marketing campaign legit mentioned. “No more games.”
In a remark Friday evening, the Trump marketing campaign spoke back by way of blasting Biden’s determination.
“The Telemundo/NBC debate would be widely watched by Hispanic voters, but Biden’s handlers are petrified to allow him to defend his disastrous record,” marketing campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez mentioned. “Crooked Joe Biden is too ‘cobarde’ to address the Hispanic community and answer for his failures on the debate stage!”
This week, the Trump and Biden campaigns bypassed the normal procedure run by way of the Commission on Presidential Debates and agreed to 2 presidential debates: one hosted by way of CNN in Atlanta on June 27, and every other by way of ABC News on Sept. 10, with the positioning but to be decided.
The Biden marketing campaign additionally authorized an be offering for a vice presidential debate hosted by way of CBS News, however up to now the Trump marketing campaign has no longer — as an alternative accepting the separate, competing Fox News proposal for that discuss.
Neither the Trump marketing campaign nor CBS News returned requests for touch upon Friday in regards to the standing of that discuss.
The Biden marketing campaign legit mentioned that within the letter at the debate prerequisites it authorized, the marketing campaign left the door open to the chance that CNN or ABC News may just spouse with Telemundo or Univision or every other Spanish-language channel.
CNN has introduced it’ll no longer permit a studio target audience at its debate.
For each and every of the 2 presidential debates, the applicants should meet sure necessities to seem onstage, together with being at the poll in sufficient states to succeed in a minimum of 270 electoral votes, accepting “the rules and format of the debate” and receiving at least 15% in four national polls of registered or likely voters.
The debates publicly came together quickly on Wednesday. After the Biden campaign challenged Trump to two debates hosted in a television studio — a break from the commission’s tradition of doing them on a college campus — the Trump campaign quickly agreed.
But that agreement followed private, informal conversations between the Republican and Democratic challengers that began after the president’s interview with radio host Howard Stern late last month, in which Biden said he would be “happy” to debate Trump.
In a statement Wednesday, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon also said that there would be “no more debate about debates.”
“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” she said in a statement. “No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates. We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta — if he shows up.”
Jake Traylor and Olympia Sonnier contributed.
