Democrat President Joe Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain is adding pressure on his former boss to take part in presidential election debates.
Pressure has been mounting on Biden and his handlers to face off in a one-on-one debate with President Donald Trump.
However, the unelected team of White House handlers has been shying away from committing to the debates.
Meanwhile, Trump has been calling for a debate with Biden, asserting that he’s ready anytime.
Biden recently claimed on Howard Stern’s show that he was ready to debate Trump but fell short of committing to it, as Slay News reported.
Days after Biden made his claims of a willingness to debate, Klain told MSNBC that Biden will show up.
However, Klain said the debates will have to be “different” with strict “rules” to keep Trump under “control.”
“I think they will debate,” Klain said.
“President Biden said this week on Howard Stern’s show that he’s willing to debate him, and Trump was running around claiming he’d debate him anytime anywhere.”
As they head to a rematch, Trump has been taunting his rival to get on the debate stage as questions loom about Biden’s age and fitness for duty.
Biden told Howard Stern on Friday that he would be “happy” to debate Trump.
In response, Trump said Biden “doesn’t really mean it.”
Trump also offered three different dates for Biden to prove he is serious.
Biden did not respond to Trump’s proposed dates.
The 81-year-old president has been evasive about debating Trump.
He previously claimed his commitment would depend on Trump’s “behavior.”
During the first presidential debate in 2020, Trump was aggressively targetted by moderator Chris Wallace, who refused to let him speak.
At one point, Biden told also his rival to “shut up.”
At the time, Trump accused Wallace of bias.
The former Fox News anchor infamously changed the subject when Trump brought up Hunter Biden’s business deals.
The scandal was then being exposed in greater detail with the New York Post expose of his “Laptop from Hell.”
Biden probably didn’t appreciate it when Klain, who no longer works for him, went on TV and doubled down on the president’s commitment to debate.
Klain made the comments to MSNBC anchor and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki.
Klain told Psaki that Biden will likely join Trump on the stage at some point, but strict rules need to be enforced to avoid a “shouting match.”
“We need to have debates where the candidates get equal time, where there is an orderly way of proceeding, where they can be heard, where it’s not a shouting match,” he said.
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
PSAKI: I want to ask you about debates because I don’t — perhaps you have prepped more presidential candidates for debates than anyone. Someone can fact check me on that. But there’s this whole question of will they debate, won’t they debate, we’ll see what happens. They both said they would.
But you’ve also said that there need to be kind of fair rules. What do those look like? And what should people understand about that?
KLAIN: I think they will debate. President Biden said this week on Howard Stern’s show that he’s willing to debate him, and Trump was running around claiming he’d debate him anytime anywhere.
PSAKI: Including today. I like it when he said it.
KLAIN: Yes. I don’t think that’s true. But I think there will be debates. I think what we have to see is something different than we saw in 2016 and 2020, where the debate commission lost control of the debates, Trump didn’t follow the rules at all, he talked over his opponents, there wasn’t a fair division of time, it was more a spectacle than a debate. That’s always going to be true with Donald Trump on the stage.
But we need to have debates where the candidates get equal time, where there is an orderly way of proceeding, where they can be heard, where it’s not a shouting match, where the American people can compare the two people who are the leading candidates for president.
PSAKI: Yes. The rules are so important, which I think people don’t realize that that’s part of the negotiation of it all.
KLAIN: Definitely — rules are going to have to be enforced.
PSAKI: Absolutely.
The 2024 debates aren’t scheduled to start until September, but Trump is challenging Biden to debate as soon as possible.
Trump says he’s ready “anytime, anyplace,” including the White House.
“We’re ready. Just tell me where,” Trump said.
“I will do it at the White House.
“That would be very comfortable, actually.”
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