Will Biden debate Trump? ‘It depends on his behavior,’ president says

With the 2024 presidential contenders all but officially nominated, former President Donald Trump says he’s ready to take on President Joe Biden on the debate stage.

Trump, during a weekend rally in Georgia, dispensed with rumors he wanted to avoid meeting Biden for a second round of one-on-one debates, after the 45th President refused to join any of his Republican primary opponents on the stage in the run up to this year’s party nominating contests. The former president repeatedly claimed there was nothing to be gained by debating with the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, citing his months-long domination of the polls.

The general election is a horse race of an entirely different color, if Trump’s weekend remarks are to be believed.

“Anytime, anywhere, anyplace: I’ll debate,” Trump declared.

The former president was apparently responding directly to a Friday PBS Newshour conversation between Washington Post Associate Editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks, in which Capehart suggested presidential debates might not occur at all this election cycle, due to Trump’s alleged unwillingness to appear for a live meeting with the sitting president.

“I don’t know whether they will debate. But I do know this, I think President Biden absolutely wants to debate. The question is, does Donald Trump? And that, I’m not convinced that he does,” Capehart said.

Trump, after criticizing Capehart’s employer as a “terrible paper” and disagreeing with his assertions, made clear that he would be happy to go toe-to-toe with Biden again.

“I want to debate Biden, because it’s important for the American people to hear what’s going on, and how can you destroy our country like you’re doing it? So, officially, I wanna debate crooked Joe Biden,” he said.

According to pool reports, Biden was asked about whether he would be willing to debate with Trump and said only that “it depends on his behavior.”

Biden’s former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told MSNBC on Sunday that Biden’s participation depends on Trump’s ability to abide by the standing rules, and on whether or not he could avoid making the meeting into a “spectacle more than a debate.”

“President Biden has debated each time he’s run for president, and he debated last time under the rubric of the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debate,” Klain said. “Last week Trump said he would never participate in Commission debates again. So I think it’s really up to Donald Trump to make it clear he would agree to this long-standing way in which we’ve conducted presidential debates in this country.”

Trump’s assertions that he is willing to debate come following the president’s annual State of the Union address to Congress last week, when a fired-up Biden used the historically unique circumstances of the 2024 election to take aim at his opponent by attacking the policies of his White House “predecessor” without actually naming the 45th president. It also comes as polling shows the pair in a dead heat heading into November.

According to a national survey of 1,350 registered voters conducted by Emerson College Polling ahead of Biden’s speech to Congress, the pair of presidents are tied at 45% support, with 10% of voters still undecided.

“This race is well within the poll’s margin of error and could move in either direction. When undecided voters are pushed in the head-to-head matchup, Biden gains a two-point lead; however, when third-party candidates are factored in, Trump has nearly a two-point edge,” Emerson pollster Spencer Kimball said with the poll’s release.

Young undecided voters are especially prone to picking the incumbent president over the former, according to the survey.

“Biden leads Trump among voters under 30, 43% to 37%, with 20% undecided. When these voters are forced to choose between Biden and Trump and their support is included in the total, 58% support Biden and 42% Trump,” Kimball said.

Immigration continues to be a winning issue for the former president, with 53% of polled voters saying they think Trump would be better than Biden when it comes to handling the border crisis and a third of voters over 70 saying it’s the most important issue for them this election cycle.

About two-thirds of voters said Biden would be better on abortion rights and 52% said they prefer he handle the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

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