Former President Donald Trump’s team is demanding earlier and more frequent debates against President Joe Biden this election cycle, claiming many people have been voting earlier in recent election cycles.
Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said the three debate dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates come too late in the election cycle because millions of voters would have already cast their ballots by mail.
“Voting is beginning earlier and earlier, and as we saw in 2020, tens of millions of Americans had already voted by the time of the first debate,” the duo wrote in a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates. “Specific to the Commission’s proposed 2024 calendar, it simply comes too late. By the date of the first proposed debate, September 16, 2024, over 1 million Americans will have likely voted. By the date of the second proposed debate, October 1, 2024, the number of Americans who will have likely cast a ballot will be over 3 million, an increase of 225%.”
The pair estimated that 8.7 million people would have voted by the time of the third debate on Oct. 9. They also claimed that people were “robbed” of a “true and robust debate” by having the two debates in the 2020 election too late in the election period.
The campaign also said more debates were necessary and that the debates should begin immediately.
“Former President Abraham Lincoln and former U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas held seven debates in their storied 1858 U.S. Senate battle in Illinois,” they said. “Certainly today’s America deserves as much.”
Trump himself echoed the need for more debates early on in the election period, claiming the state of the country was so bad.
“The country is in such trouble,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “What are Biden’s plans? I would fully accept any debate, anywhere, anytime, anyplace. … I think it is important that we debate, and the earlier, the better because people have to find out what is going on with America. We are no longer respected around the world. There are so many things that are happening. It’s not the same country that we had just four years ago.”
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Biden has not committed to any debates personally, claiming it would depend upon Trump’s behavior. But he admitted that if he were the former president, he would want to debate as well.
“If I were him, I would want to debate me, too,” Biden told reporters in Nevada earlier this year. “He’s got nothing else to do.”