Biden’s team OKS plans for three debates

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s campaign said Monday that the presumptive Democratic nominee would commit to participating in three debates, and slammed a push by President Donald Trump’s advisers for an additional debate as an “effort to change the subject.”

“Our position is straightforward and clear: Joe Biden will accept the Commission’s debates, on the Commission’s dates, under the Commission’s established format and the Commission’s independent choice of moderators,” said Biden campaign manager Jen O’malley Dillon in a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit group that sponsors general election debates, which was obtained by The Associated Press. “Donald Trump and Mike Pence should do the same.”

“Any ‘debate proposals’ in lieu of that are just an effort to change the subject, avoid debates, or create a distracting ‘debate about debates,’” she added.

The letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post, came in response to a request made by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to add another, earlier debate to the current schedule of three. They also proposed that each campaign have a role in selecting the debate moderators.

Trump’s team noted absentee and mail voting is being expanded because of the COVID-19 pandemic and expressed concern that some ballots — especially those by elderly voters most at risk to the virus — could be cast before the first debate. The first is scheduled for Sept. 29 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the second on Oct. 15 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the third for a week later, Oct. 22, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The seeming acceptance that a vast number of this year’s votes will be cast by mail marks a change for the campaign. Both Giuliani and Trump have criticized widespread mail voting and claimed without evidence that mail ballots are ripe for fraud.

In the Monday letter, O’malley Dillon also pointed out that the Trump campaign’s request for more debates marked a shift from December, when advisers were threatening that Trump might skip the debates altogether.

She also asked that the CPD confirm it’s formulating safety plans to ensure that the debates will go on despite the coronavirus pandemic, and that the second debate be held in a town hall format.