Trump campaign calls for earlier and more presidential debates

CNN
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Former President Donald Trump’s campaign sent a letter Thursday to the Commission on Presidential Debates asking for this year’s general election debates to take place “much earlier” and calling for more of them to be added to the schedule.

“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,” Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in the letter to commission members.

Wiles and LaCivita said that with voting beginning much earlier in recent elections, the commission “must move up the timetable of its proposed 2024 debates to ensure more Americans have a full chance to see the candidates before they start voting, and we would argue for adding more debates in addition to those on the currently proposed schedule.”

“We have already indicated President Trump is willing to debate anytime, anyplace, and anywhere – and the time to start these debates is now,” they said.

The first presidential debate is slated to take place on September 16 in San Marcos, Texas, 50 days before Election Day on November 5.

That schedule would still be earlier than it has been in the recent past. In 2020, the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden took place 35 days before Election Day on September 29. In 2016, the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton took place on September 26 – 43 days before Election Day.

The Trump campaign letter comes after five of the major US television networks, including CNN, banded together to draft a letter urging the former president and Biden to commit to participating in televised debates ahead of the 2024 election.

According to the draft, the networks, which also include NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox News, urged the presumptive presidential nominees “to publicly commit to participating in general election debates before November’s election.”

Republican National Committee officials weighed in on the debates Thursday in response to the Trump campaign’s letter.

“Election calendars have become longer than ever before — and scheduling debates after millions of Americans have already cast their ballots does a grave disservice to voters who want to hear solutions to the economic, border, and crime crises created by Joe Biden,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump said in a statement.

Biden has not publicly committed to debating Trump, although he has not ruled it out.

“It depends on his behavior,” the president said in early March.

CNN’s Ethan Cohen and Hadas Gold contributed to this report.