Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign team is pushing back on President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign plan to push for more presidential debates ahead of the general election.
Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager and communications director for Biden’s campaign, insists Trump is only making strides to schedule additional debates because his approval rating has sharply declined.
“Six months after announcing he did not want to debate, Donald Trump — now trailing in the polls — wants to change the subject from his failed leadership, and launch a ‘campaign’ for many debates. But there’s a catch: he’ll only do it if he can pick the moderators,” Bedingfield said.
Biden campaign's @kbeds declines the new Trump request for more debates, after he'd previously threatened not to attend any debates, saying Biden will abide by @debates rules. "We are not going to ride the roller coaster of the ever-changing Trump campaign position on debates." pic.twitter.com/IELNZjajBY
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) June 18, 2020
The latest polling results indicate Biden has further distanced himself from Trump with a 13-point lead while NPR’s simulated electoral college results also signal Biden having an advantage in battleground states.
Although Trump has often criticized poll findings, Fox News’ poll, released on Thursday, also suggests similar findings showing Biden with a 12-point advantage over the president.
On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that representatives of Trump’s campaign submitted a proposal to the Commission on Presidential Debates requesting additional debates with Biden.
Trump’s representatives reportedly argued that “the two campaigns should have sway over debate moderators, rather than only the nonpartisan debate commission, an argument that has previously been rejected by the organization’s chairman. They also said debates should not occur on nights when there are NFL games,” the Post reports.
Bedingfield also made it clear that Biden’s campaign would not “ride the roller coaster of the ever-changing Trump campaign position on debates.”
She, instead, suggested a simplified way to approach the situation as she confirmed Biden will comply with the long-standing debate standards that were established by the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1992.
She wrote, “We will make this simple: like every other Democratic and Republican candidate since 1992, we will show up for the debates set by the Commission on Presidential Debates, at the places they have selected, on the dates they have selected, with the formats and moderators they designate — so long as Donald Trump does the same, and does not intimidate the Commission into changes from past practices.”