Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday there shouldn’t be any presidential debates this year between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, adding that the president would debase the debate stage with poor behavior.
“I don’t think there should be any debates,” Pelosi told reporters. “I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody should that 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,” she added.
Biden and Trump are set to face off during three debates before Election Day, with the first scheduled for Sept. 29 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Pelosi acknowledged that Biden, who has expressed excitement for facing the president, didn’t share her view on the debate. But she still told reporters about her distaste for Trump’s past debate performances.
Pelosi called Trump’s 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton “disgraceful,” emphasizing how he loomed behind her on the stage as she spoke. Clinton later admitted that Trump’s lurking made her “skin crawl.”
“He’ll probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency,” Pelosi said. “He does that every day.”
Speaking with MSNBC’s Andrew Mitchell, Biden said Thursday afternoon that he planned to face Trump so long as the debates remained on the docket. Still, he conceded that the president would probably use the debate stage to spread misinformation, similar to the instances of revisionism displayed at the Republican National Convention this week.
“I will be a fact-checker on the floor while I am debating him,” Biden said. “I think everybody knows this man has a somewhat pathological tendency not to tell the truth.”
“I’m used to dealing with bullies,” he later added in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
The Trump campaign has protested the scheduling of the three debates, noting that some states allow voting before the first debate night. The campaign has pushed for a debate earlier in September to allow Americans to see the candidates face off before being able to vote.
Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, characterized Pelosi’s remarks in a similar vein, saying in a statement to POLITICO: “Joe Biden had plenty of practice from the 11 Democrat primary debates, but he’s still getting lots of advice from Nancy Pelosi and others who want him to bail out on encounters with President Trump completely.“
“Biden has vehemently opposed holding even one debate before millions of Americans actually start voting, and one has to wonder why he would fear a side-by-side comparison with President Trump before ballots are cast,” the statement said. “Biden clearly knows he can’t defend the radical left policies he has adopted and wants to keep voters in the dark as long as possible.”
The Commission on Presidential debates rejected this month the Trump campaign’s request for an earlier debate, saying its fears of mass early voting were unfounded.
“There is a difference between ballots having been issued by a state and those ballots having been cast by voters, who are under no compulsion to return their ballots before the Debates,” the commission wrote in a letter dated Aug. 6, noting a similar debate schedule in the 2016 election.
