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President Joe Biden "got the best of Donald Trump" with his presidential debate challenge, Republican strategist and MSNBC political analyst Susan Del Percio said on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Biden posted a video to X, formerly Twitter, challenging Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, to the first debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. The former president accepted shortly after.
The debates, however, are expected to look a little different this time, with terms set out by the Biden campaign. There will be no live audience and the candidates' microphones will be muted after their allotted time.
Meanwhile, both candidates exchanged jabs on Wednesday, with Biden remarking, "I hear you're free on Wednesdays," referencing Trump's day off from his criminal hush money trial in Manhattan in which he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to a hush money payment that was made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Trump, who maintains his innocence in the case, then called Biden "the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can't put two sentences together!" in a Truth Social post.
Historically early in the cycle, the debate is slated for June 27 at CNN's studio in Atlanta. This will be the third time Biden and Trump have faced off, having debated twice during the 2020 presidential campaign. A second debate hosted by ABC News is scheduled for September 10, but no location has been announced yet.
At the Minnesota Republican Party's annual Lincoln Reagan dinner on Friday night, Trump spoke about the upcoming June debate and said, "I'm gonna demand a drug test too," in reference to Biden. "I am, no I really am. I don't want him coming in like the State of the Union, he was high as a kite."
There is no evidence Biden used drugs before his State of the Union address.
On MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show Saturday afternoon, Del Percio, who has been critical of the former president and his influence over the Republican Party, talked about Trump's drug test request and said, "Trump works in chaos. He can't work with facts, he can't deal with policies, so he deals in chaos."
Del Percio added that Biden "really got the best of Donald Trump" in regards to the debates because "he set the terms," referencing the two key factors: no live audience and microphone limits.
According to GOP strategist, "There is going to be a way to turn off the mic switch if they [the candidates] go over time."
Newsweek has reached out to CNN's director of communications via email for confirmation.
Trump, meanwhile, had previously suggested drug testing before debates back in 2020. In September 2020, Trump posted on then-Twitter that he demands Biden take a drug test ahead of the debate, writing that "his Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???"
Biden's deputy 2020 campaign manager Kate Bedingfield posted the campaign's statement refuting Trump's claims: "Vice President Biden intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it. We'd expect nothing less from Donald Trump, who pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200K Americans when he didn't make a plan to stop COVID-19."
Neither candidates took drug tests before the debate last cycle.
The year's first debate will be co-moderated by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. David Muir and Linsey Davis will serve as the co-moderators of ABC News' fall debate.
The debates come as the presidential race is extremely close. FiveThirtyEight's latest national poll aggregation on Saturday shows Trump leading Biden by 1 percentage point.
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About the writer
Mandy Taheri is a Newsweek reporter based in Brooklyn. She joined Newsweek as a reporter in 2024. You can get ... Read more