the president Joe Biden‘s campaign on Friday rejected two additional debates by the former president Donald Trumpsays that he accepts to do the campaign.
One of them was a presidential candidacy offer A debate hosted by NBC News and Telemundo. Another was for a Fox News-hosted vice presidential debate at Virginia State University, a historically Black college.
“I accepted the fourth presidential debate against crooked Joe Biden, this time with NBC and Telemundo,” Trump Posted on Truth Social Friday afternoon. “As Republicans, it is important that we WIN with our Greater Hispanic Community, which Biden has devastated with inflation, high gas prices, crime on our streets and border chaos… All of this is in addition to our accepting the invitation. Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will host the Vice Presidential Debate at Virginia State University or another location in Virginia.
A spokeswoman for NBC News confirmed that the network offered the debate to both campaigns.
Trump’s embrace of the debates, which would reach larger Latino and Black audiences, was intended in part to guide the Biden campaign, which has struggled to connect with those communities, which are crucial to his 2020 election.
“The debate about the debate is over,” a Biden campaign official said. “No more games.”
In a statement Friday night, the Trump campaign responded by blasting Biden’s decision.
“The Telemundo/NBC debate would have been widely watched by Hispanic voters, but Biden’s handlers were afraid to let him defend his disastrous record,” campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said. “Crooked Joe Biden is too much of a ‘coward’ to address the Hispanic community and respond to his failures on the debate stage!”
This week, the Trump and Biden campaigns bypassed the traditional process by the Commission on Presidential Debates to agree to two presidential debates: one on June 27 in Atlanta by CNN and the other on September 10 by ABC News, the location of which has yet to take place. define.
The Biden campaign also accepted a bid for a CBS News-hosted vice presidential debate, but so far the Trump campaign has not — instead accepting a separate, competing Fox News bid for that debate.
Neither the Trump campaign nor CBS News responded to requests for comment Friday about the status of that debate.
A Biden campaign official said in a letter about the terms of the deal that he accepted that the campaign left the door open to the possibility that CNN or ABC News could partner with Telemundo or Univision or another Spanish-language channel.
CNN has announced that it will not allow a studio audience at the debate.
Candidates will be required for each of the two presidential debates meets certain requirements to get on the stage, including being on the ballot in enough states to reach at least 270 electoral votes, adopting the “rules and format of the debate” and garnering at least 15% in four national polls of registered or likely voters.
Discussions came together quickly on Wednesday. After the Biden campaign invited Trump to two debates held in a television studio — a break from the commission’s tradition of holding them on a college campus — the Trump campaign quickly agreed.
But that agreement private, informal conversations followed The fight between the Republican and Democratic rivals began after the president interview with radio host Howard Stern Late last month, Biden said he would be “happy” to debate Trump.
In a statement Wednesday, campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon also said there would be “no more discussion about the debates.”
“President Biden has announced his terms for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump has accepted those terms,” he said. “No more games. No more chaos, no more arguments about debates. We’ll see Donald Trump in Atlanta on June 27 – if he ever shows up.
Jake Traylor and Olympia Sonnier contributed.