Former President Donald Trump revealed Wednesday the latest request President Joe Biden’s team is apparently making ahead of the candidates’ head-to-head match up on the debate stage.
After Trump’s campaign continuously pushed Biden to debate, the president proposed the candidates debate twice, though there were a list of non-negotiables the Biden team wanted to make the event happen. Among Biden’s proposed standards were no live audience, a select variety of networks to host and only two candidates on stage. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Campaign Doubles Down On Pre-Debate Drug Test Demand For Biden)
Now there appear to be more. Trump told John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on 77 WABC AM that the Biden campaign is requesting that the candidates sit at a table for the entirety of the debate.
“I hear now we’re sitting at tables. I don’t want to sit at a table,” Trump said.
“I said, ‘No, let’s stand.’ But they want to sit at a table,” Trump continued. “So we’ll be sitting at a table as opposed to doing it the way you should be, in my opinion, in a debate.”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) May 15, 2024
“But I agree to their requests because I want to debate him,” Trump told Catsimatidis and Cosby.
“I want him to tell us why he did that in Afghanistan, why it was the worst, most embarrassing day in history where we gave back — think of it — we gave them 85 billion dollars worth of equipment. 13 people killed, 45 people just so badly hurt —of our people — and hundreds of people killed overall. And we left hostages behind. I call them hostages. We left a lot of Americans behind,” the former president continued.
Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.
Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.
Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
In addition to no live audience, Biden’s campaign proposed that the debates only be held by networks that hosted the 2016 Republican primary debates and the 2020 Democratic primary debates in 2020, The NYT reported. Those networks include CNN, ABC News, Telemundo and CBS News.
Another contention the campaign had was that they wanted the forum limited to Trump and Biden on stage. The rule would exclude Robert F. Kennedy, who had the potential to reach the 15% polling threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Kennedy did announced after the news of the CNN debate that he would “meet the criteria” before the deadline to participate in CNN’s forum.
Since, Biden and Trump have both accepted two debates: one on June 27 broadcasted on CNN and the other Sept. 10 on ABC News. Trump has accepted a proposal for a vice presidential debate on Fox News, though the Biden campaign has not. Instead, the Biden campaign accepted CBS News’ vice presidential debate proposal.
