First Biden-Trump presidential debate set for 27 June

Shortly after the Biden-Harris re-election campaign proposed two TV debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump ahead of November’s presidential vote, both men agreed upon the date of their first debate: 27 June.

CNN confirmed they would host the first debate of 2024 on that date at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia.

On Wednesday morning, Biden said in a video shared on social media: “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.

He then jabbed: “So let’s pick dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” referring to the free day in Trump’s current campaign finance violations trial in New York.

Biden’s proposal bucked a tradition of three debates, typically held in the fall, that are organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Democratic party officials said in a release on Wednesday that moving the timing up, reducing the number of debates, and ending them sooner reflected changes in the “structure of our elections and the interests of voters”.

The Democrats’ proposal also noted that debates in previous elections cycles had not concluded until after early voting started and the commission’s debates were “structured like an entertainment spectacle and not a serious exchange of ideas that reflect the enormous stakes of the election”.

The commission “has consistently demonstrated an inability to enforce their own rules” in the debates and called for a firm time-limit on answers, and alternate turns to speak “so that the time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption”.

Later on Wednesday morning,