On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that there shouldn’t be any debates between President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden in the lead up to the 2020 election this November. Pelosi argued that a debate against Trump would “legitimize” the man who has been the president of the United States since January of 2017.
The Biden campaign has already agreed to three debates, with the Trump campaign clamoring for more — especially at least one prior to ballots being sent in. But the Speaker of the House told reporters she is against the idea of any debates.
“Don’t tell anybody I told you this — especially don’t tell Joe Biden — I don’t think that there should be any debates,” Pelosi said. “I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody should, and has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States.”
After conceding that the Biden campaign had different ideas, Pelosi brought up the 2016 debates in which President Trump referred to Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.” Pelosi called Trump’s behavior “disgraceful.”
“I thought what [Trump] did in 2016 was disgraceful, stalking Hillary Clinton like that,” Pelosi said.
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“I think [Trump will] probably act in a way that’s beneath the dignity of the presidency. He does that every day. But I think he would also belittle what the debates are supposed to be about. They’re not to be about skullduggery on the part of somebody who has no respect for the office he holds, much less the democratic process.”
Pelosi concluded, “If Joe Biden asked what I thought about it, I don’t think he should dignify that conversation with Donald Trump.”
The Trump campaign couldn’t wait to pounce on Pelosi’s suggestion that Biden skip the debates. Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller tweeted: “Joe Biden’s not going to leave his basement for the debates. We’ve set this out as a possibility for some time now, but this is a pretty clear indication he will remain in hiding until Election Day. Americans deserve better than #HidenBiden.”
And GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted: “Democrats are terrified of letting Joe Biden out of the basement. If Biden cannot debate, he has no business being president!”
The Biden campaign quickly dismissed the notion of skipping the debates, and Biden spokesman Andrew Bates confirmed that the debates are still on even though the campaign would “certainly agree with Speaker Pelosi on her view of the president’s behavior. But just as she has powerfully confronted that behavior in the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room, Joe Biden looks forward to doing the same on the debate stage.”
Biden later confirmed this himself on MSNBC, stating that “as long as the [Commission on Presidential Debates] continues down the straight and narrow as they have, I’m going to debate him,” Biden said. “I’m going to be a fact-checker on the floor when I’m debating him.”
The New York Times — which is practically an arm of the Democrat Party — has also endorsed the idea of doing away with presidential debates, claiming that they’ve become “unrevealing quip contests.” But, as Joe Biden likes to say, “Come on man!” Is that the real reason?
Perhaps Pelosi was chosen to float this trial balloon by a nervous Democrat Party that fears Biden’s possibly collapsing mental state will show up when he is strongly challenged. Ironically, in the Democrat pirmary debates, the person who challenged Biden most vociferously is now his running mate — Kamala Harris. His only one-on-one debate was a cordial affair with Bernie Sanders, which occurred shortly before Sanders endorsed Biden and withdrew from the race to work on the pair’s “Unity Task Force.”
Joe Biden, it seems, is not ready to debate Donald Trump. And Democrats such as Pelosi are terrified at the prospect.
In 2018, speaking to the University of Miami about the prospect of debating Trump, Biden offered a unique debate strategy. “They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’”
Perhaps Pelosi would simply prefer a schoolyard brawl to a debate.
Photo: AP Images
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects. He can be reached at [email protected].
