UPDATE, 11:58 a.m. Eastern: In addition to the CNN debate on June 27, former President Donald Trump and President Biden revealed on their respective social media accounts that they’ve both agreed to a second presidential debate for Tuesday, September 10 on ABC. The move was also confirmed by ABC News.
In turn, this fulfills the two debates requested for June and September by the Biden campaign with moderators only to be selected from liberal media networks ABC, CBS, CNN, or Telemundo.
As of this update, no word on whether Team Biden will agree to the Trump campaign’s request for two additional debates in July and August.
The original post continues below.
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Following a flurry of developments Wednesday morning that publicly began with the Biden campaign’s lengthy statement and cut-filled video of President Biden goating former President Donald Trump, the two sides agreed just before 11:00 a.m. Eastern to an audience-less presidential debate for Thursday, June 27 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern inside CNN’s newly-minted Atlanta, Georgia compound in Techwood.
CNN’s invitation came curiously not long after the Biden regime’s essay-lengthy demands, most notably calls for debates in June and September with the vice presidential debate in July and that moderators could only come from ABC, CBS, CNN, or Telemundo.
“CNN will host an election debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald J. Trump on June 27, 2024 at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia. The debate will be held in CNN’s Atlanta studios. To ensure candidates may maximize the time allotted in the debate, no audience will be present,” the network said in a press release.
It added that, in an important tidbit for this website and readership, “[m]oderators for the debate and additional details will be announced at a later date.”
Time to start taking bets. Fake News Jim? Jake Tapper? Anderson Cooper, who co-moderated one of the Trump-Hillary Clinton 2016 debates? Erin Burnett, who just conducted a softball interview with Biden? Late-night liberal hack Abby Phillip? Or do they run it back with Chris Wallace?
While it then alluded to requiring candidates fulfilling all constitutional qualifications, sufficient appearances on state ballots, and polling benchmarks, this arrangement as a result of informal talks between the two campaigns would appear to have been done to cut out the Presidential Commission on Debates and thus exclude third-party candidates, including the high-polling independent bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
An on-air announcement came during Acosta’s hour of CNN Newsroom to coincide with a CNN Public Relations tweet.
“Alright, more on the breaking news right now, Former President Donald Trump has accepted CNN’s invitation for debate with President Biden. That is setting up a June showdown…[T]his is going to happen very quickly if — if all a plays out the way it’s happening right now,” Acosta proclaimed to CNN’s resident Biden apple polisher, Arlette Saenz.
Saenz then relayed what her side of the aisle wanted out of this debate, noting the lengthy Biden regime’s list of “very specific” demands “about what they want to see” such as “the microphones can only be on when each candidate is expected to speak, potentially eliminating some of that very intense back-and-forth that we saw in the very first debate between Biden and Trump back in 2020.”
#BREAKING: CNN announces that both President Biden and Donald Trump have accepted their invitation for a presidential debate on Thursday, June 27 at CNN’s Atlanta studios at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, no studio audience. pic.twitter.com/YIaBwSDqSr
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 15, 2024
Acosta and chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny then discussed more of the details, including how this will be a throwback to the first-ever presidential debate on TV in 1960 between future Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon (click “expand”):
ACOSTA: CNN will host and election debate between Biden and Trump on June 20, at. 9:00 p.m. in the Atlanta studios of CNN. Our new studios, not at the old building, but the new building.
ZELENY: The historical Techwood studios.
ACOSTA: The Techwoods campus and it says here, “to ensure candidates may maximize the time a lot in the debate, no audience will be present”.
ZELENY: Right.
ACOSTA: That’s interesting.
ZELENY: And that is — it really takes us back, Jim, to those first televised debates in 1960, of course, in CBS news and Chicago.
ACOSTA: Oh, yeah.
ZELENY: On ___ street clerk shirt at WBBM as you well know.
ACOSTA: My old stomping ground, yeah.
ZELENY: And it’s certainly is designed, at least the Biden campaign is hoping, that it will focus on the issues, on the candidates, and the contrast port. And also that it’s an Atlanta. Obviously, Georgia is a central battleground in this election. It’s some — state that has really been the subject of so much conversation. Donald Trump claimed he won it. He did not win it, of course court cases, et cetera, but it is a key battleground as well. But this is a fast moving development and the point is, you can tell I didn’t k-mean has been working on this for awhile.
ACOSTA: Oh yeah.
ZELENY: And clearly, they’ve been preparing for the idea of a debate, but it could just happen weeks after the first criminal trial’s in.
ACOSTA: That’s right.
ZELENY: So, certainly the outcome of that will also be hanging over this debate.
Minutes after this announcement, a Trump campaign memo was made public by campaign co-managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles arguing “there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves.”
In turn, they announced they agree to not only the Biden campaign’s proposals for the September showdown and the vice presidential candidate sparring session, but two additional debates in July and August because “[w]e believe the American people deserve more than what the Biden administration has to offer.”