While Joe Biden tried (and failed) to put on his best scripted tough-guy act in his official debate challenge to Donald Trump Wednesday morning, the behind-the-scenes details on what Biden’s team is demanding reveal a very nervous and terrified incumbent who wants everything controlled right down to the type of audience.
A letter written by Biden’s campaign co-chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, and sent to the Commission on Presidential Debates (who they are bypassing) lays out how Biden’s handlers want the media outlets who presumably will be hosting and moderating the debates to handle them.
He wants no live audience, mics cut once the person’s time expires and while the other person is talking, only certain news organizations hosting it, and no RFK Jr.:
The letter by the Biden campaign lays out for the first time the president’s terms for giving Mr. Trump what he has openly clamored for: a televised confrontation with a successor Mr. Trump has portrayed, and hopes to reveal, as too feeble to hold the job. In a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump quickly agreed to the two dates proposed by the Biden campaign, although it was unclear whether he would agree to Mr. Biden’s other terms.
Mr. Biden and his top aides want the debates to start much sooner than the dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, so voters can see the two candidates side by side well before early voting begins in September. They want the debate to occur inside a TV studio, with microphones that automatically cut off when a speaker’s time limit elapses. And they want it to be just the two candidates and the moderator — without the raucous in-person audiences that Mr. Trump feeds on and without the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.
“A candidate’s microphone should only be active when it is his turn to speak, to promote adherence to the rules and orderly proceedings,” the letter also stipulated.
Citing how the debates were managed in 2020, the Biden campaign indicated that they would find only a select few media outlets acceptable to host the debates:
Under the parameters laid out by the Biden campaign, the first debate should be hosted by any broadcast organization that oversaw a Republican primary debate in 2016 that Trump participated in and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 that Mr. Biden took part in. The outlets that fit those terms are CBS News, ABC News, CNN and Telemundo. Telemundo and CNN hosted a Republican primary debate that Trump attended in 2016.
The actual Biden debate news today:
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) May 15, 2024
Biden is refusing to debate Trump in front of an audience of voters.
His campaign is demanding big guardrails for Biden, including:
– No audience.
– No RFK Jr.
– No Trump remarks during Biden's answers.
– Only Biden-friendly outlets &…
As RedState previously reported, Biden has given his handlers nightmares in recent weeks by teasing that he would be up for a debate depending on Trump’s “behavior.”
As we’ve also documented, Biden and his campaign seem to be in full-fledged denial over poll numbers consistently showing Biden in trouble against Trump, with staffers and Biden himself believing that Biden is at the very least tied with Trump if not ahead of him in the polls.
This suggests, as my colleague Ward Clark observed, that the Biden team is in panic mode at this point, which may have prompted them to issue the debate challenges, perhaps as a way to try and make Biden look confident and ready to rumble.
The problem with this strategy, as I’ve noted before, is that Joe Biden’s worst enemy will always be Joe Biden. Because after all is said and done, it is Biden who ultimately has to do the heavy lifting on convincing voters to give him another four years, not his handlers. That is of course proving to be an increasingly tall task, especially now that the toothpaste is out of the tube.
Related–>> WATCH: Handlers Quickly Swarm As ‘Operation Hide Joe Biden’ Kicks It Up a Notch
