(Reuters) – A dozen major U.S. news organizations collectively urged U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Sunday to publicly pledge to discuss each other in the run-up to the November election.
“Debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election for the past 50 years, dating back to 1976,” the 12 media outlets said in a joint statement.
The statement suggests that debates for the current race be sponsored, as they have in every election cycle since 1988, by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
“While it is too early for invitations to be extended to any candidate, it is not too early for candidates who expect to meet the eligibility criteria to publicly declare their support for – and their intention to participate in – the committee debates scheduled for this fall .”
The television networks represent nine of the letter’s signatories: ABC News, CBS News and NBCUniversal News Group (which includes NBC News and MSNBC), as well as Fox, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS NewsHour, Nextstar’s NewsNation and Spanish-language Univision. .
Rounding out the group were the Associated Press news agency, National Public Radio and Gannett’s national newspaper, USA Today.
Trump, who refused to debate his rivals before winning the Republican primary last month, has in recent weeks challenged Biden to engage in a one-on-one confrontation with him, offering to debate the incumbent Democrat “at all times, everywhere, everywhere. “
Last Thursday, Trump’s two top campaign advisers sent a letter to the debate commission asking for an accelerated schedule of debates, holding more than the usual three events and starting them earlier than usual in the election cycle.
Biden has not committed to discussions with Trump but hasn’t ruled it out either, saying last month that it would depend on the former president’s behavior.
Biden’s camp fears that once he takes the stage, Trump will not abide by the rules set by the commission, and some Biden advisers say they would prefer not to elevate Trump by putting him on the same stage as the incumbent Democrat.
Biden has a 41% to 37% lead among registered voters over Trump, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Wednesday.
Asked during a trip to Las Vegas in early February about Trump’s request that Biden debate with him, Biden said, “If I were him, I’d want to debate him, too. He’s got nothing to do.”
Biden and Trump faced off in two televised presidential election debates during the 2020 campaign.