The top two advisers to former President Donald Trump are urging the Commission on Presidential Debates to add more debates to the schedule and to hold them earlier in the election cycle—the latest move in the campaign’s attempt to pressure President Joe Biden to agree to a public showdown.
For the past couple of weeks, Trump has lit up Truth Social with posts calling out Biden for not yet agreeing to a debate and has often used his rallies to pressure the president to face off against him.
The letter, sent by Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles—his de facto campaign managers—is the latest example of Trump and his campaign trying to highlight that while Trump wants to debate Biden, the president has yet to agree to one.
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“While the Commission on Presidential Debates has already announced three presidential debates and a vice-presidential debate to occur later this year, we are in favor of these debates beginning much earlier,” the letter reads.
They say they want earlier debates because in 2020, “tens of millions of Americans had already voted by the time of the first debate.” Because of the timing of the debates, they claim that “Americans were robbed of a true and robust debate in 2020.”
Trump—who has insisted he’s willing to debate the sitting president “anytime, anywhere, and anywhere”—has repeatedly stated he does not believe the president will actually agree to one.
Controversially, Trump said last week that if Biden does agree to a face-off, he wants there to be drug tests because he believes the president was “higher than a kite” when giving his State of the Union address.
“He’s obviously, he’s being helped some way, because most of the time, he looks like he’s falling asleep. And all of a sudden, he walked up there and did a poor job. But he was all jacked up,” Trump said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. “... I think debates, with him, at least, should be drug tested. I want a drug test.”
Trump famously refused to debate any of his competitors during the GOP primary and skipped the ones that were held because “when you're 40 points up .... why would I let these people take shots at me?" he told Fox News’ Bret Baier.
Nonetheless, despite skipping all primary debates, Trump and his campaign now want more debates held this cycle as he attempts to defeat the sitting president.
“[W]e would argue for adding more debates in addition to those on the currently proposed schedule,” the letter reads. “We have already indicated President Trump is willing to debate anytime, anyplace, and anywhere—and the time to start these debates is now. 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. Certainly today’s America deserves as much.”
When reached for comment, a Biden campaign official referred The Daily Beast to a statement Biden made to reporters earlier this year.
“If I were him, I would want to debate me, too," Biden said in February when asked about debating Trump. "He’s got nothing else to do.”
