This combination of photos show President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate on Sept. 29, 2020, in Cleveland, Ohio. Twelve news organizations issued a joint statement calling on the presumptive presidential nominees President Biden and former President Trump to agree to debates during the 2024 campaign. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, PBS, NBC, NPR and The Associated Press all signed on to the letter.
“Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation,” Biden wrote on X, working in a jab about the perks of incumbency. “I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.” “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate,” Biden said in a post on X. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.”
The two campaigns and television networks had held weeks of informal talks on ways to circumvent the commission’s grip on presidential debates following years of complaints and perceived slights, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke about internal discussions on condition of anonymity.
The debates will be the first televised general election matchups to be hosted by individual networks. The 1960 debates, which helped show the power of the medium to influence public opinion, were hosted jointly by the leading networks of the day. Before the commission was formed in 1987, the presidential debates of 1976, 1980 and 1984 were organized by the League of Women Voters.
“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,” she wrote.