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It’s the matchup that many voters don’t want, but the debate that the country needs to see. Again.
The 2020 presidential debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, especially the first one, were chaotic to say the least. As we said after that first debate four years ago, it was like watching two old men yelling at each other. Now they’re older and angrier.
America continues to deserve a better, and more substantive, presidential debate. But like four years ago, these are the major candidates we have. So even though we don’t really want to sit through another 90 minutes of chaos, presidential debates remain an important avenue for the electorate to assess the positions, acuity, and demeanor of the candidates looking to earn their vote. Even if there does end up being chaos again, that tells us something about the candidate or candidates responsible for it.
The Commission on Presidential Debates has had three debates scheduled since last fall, but the public is yet to have official confirmation that both Biden and Trump will participate. Trump has said he will debate Biden “any time, any place” and Biden recently told Howard Stern that he is “happy to debate” Trump.
The bombast and vague comments need to turn into official commitments. Trump’s team in particular has ramped up its calls for debate. They are right that these longstanding tests for candidates remain important, but like so much with the former president, their approach is still drenched in hypocrisy.
This is the same candidate who refused to participate in Republican primary debates. While we also would like Biden to definitively commit to debating Trump, no one should let Trump’s bluster obscure his own hesitance to share the debate stage with Republican challengers.
Trump in particular was responsible for the tenor on the debate stage in 2020. That does not absolve Biden from participating this year, however. Biden said in March that his participation would depend on Trump’s behavior. It shouldn’t. Biden should be debating Trump regardless of whether the former president continues to act like, well, himself, and let the American people judge Trump for that behavior.
Yes, many Americans already have a good idea about Trump and Biden. But as a group of news organizations stressed in a mid-April open letter urging both of them to participate, televised debates remain an important tool for voters as they assess the candidates and prepare to cast an informed vote in the November election.
“If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the news organizations stated in the letter. “Amidst that backdrop, there is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation.”
There is no debate from us on that point.
