The political intrigue behind the unusually early June debate date.
After months of uncertainty, it looks like we’ll be getting debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump after all — and sooner than expected.
On Wednesday, the Biden campaign announced a proposal to have two presidential debates, one in late June, the other in September. Trump quickly said he accepted those dates.
Later Wednesday morning, Biden announced on social media that he’d received and accepted an invitation for a CNN-hosted debate on June 27 in Atlanta. Trump then told Fox News, “I’ll be there.”
By midday, both Biden and Trump agreed that the second debate would be on September 10 and hosted by ABC News. So, this is apparently happening.
Why this is a big deal: It had been unclear whether there would be any presidential debates this year. Trump has for months said he’d debate Biden anytime and anywhere. But Biden has been more reluctant to commit — in keeping with the White House’s strategy of tightly controlling Biden’s availability for high-stakes adversarial public questioning.
