Closing summary
It was something of a wild morning for Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s campaigns, who came to a sudden agreement over their debate schedule. The story began when a top Biden campaign official announced that the president would be willing to participate in two debates – which Trump, who has long sought to face off against the man who beat him in 2020, quickly said would work for him. In a series of back-and-forth announcements, Biden and Trump agreed to face off on 27 June in an Atlanta event hosted by CNN, and against on 10 September at a yet-to-be-announced location organized by ABC. But the Trump campaign has argued for even more debates, and the former president announced he had accepted an invitation from Fox News for a third debate in October. The Biden campaign later accused Trump of “playing games”.
Here’s what else happened today:
Biden’s campaign also pulled out of a series of debates planned by the non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates, striking a blow to an organization that has traditionally coordinated the closely watched events.
Robert F Kennedy Jr was not pleased about being left out of the debates.
The president echoed Clint Eastwood in a video where he announced his plans to face Trump on the debate stage.
Rightwing House lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna proposed awarding Trump Congress’s highest civilian honor.
House Republicans investigating the January 6 committee are reportedly demanding documents from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide who gave startling testimony about his conduct during the insurrection.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, offered some of the most eyebrow-raising testimony during the January 6 committee’s hearings in 2022.
House Republicans are now investigating the committee’s work, and NBC News reports they are demanding documents from Hutchinson as part of their inquiry. Here’s more:
In the letter, first obtained by NBC News, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chair of the House Administration subcommittee on oversight, asked Hutchinson to turn over all communications through this month with former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the Jan. 6 panel’s vice chair, and a number of top Trump White House officials. They include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin; former White House deputy chief of staff Anthony Ornato; former White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann; and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
In addition, Loudermilk asked Hutchinson for communications related to “potential publishing or book deals or related compensation,” as well as on employment after the White House; the 25th Amendment, which covers removing a president from power; and her itinerary for a trip to the Florida’s Gulf Coast in early 2021.
Last fall, Hutchinson wrote a best-selling book about the events of Jan. 6, “Enough.”
Loudermilk wrote that the request for documents and other communications is necessary because the select Jan. 6 panel — which was created by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. — “failed to properly archive their records, including as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts, over one terabyte of digital data, and over 100 deleted or encrypted documents.”
“The Subcommittee has no choice but to repeat much of the work of the Select Committee to understand their investigative findings,” Loudermilk said.
In March, the GOP released a report that it said contradicted Hutchinson’s claim that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of the vehicle he was being driven in as the January 6 insurrection unfolded:
Politico has some details about how today’s blitz of debate planning between rivals Donald Trump and Joe Biden came together.
Talks between the two camps began in March, when top Trump adviser Susie Wiles spoke with Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon at a Washington DC dinner, before culminating in today’s announcements of the dates when the two candidates would meet.
While Trump has been publicly keen to debate Biden, the president advisors have been taking a cautious approach, but believe the conditions agreed to today are to their benefit, Politico says:
The president’s team had wrestled for months as to how to approach the debates. Senior advisers felt that they could not skip them, as the reelection campaign has been positioning itself as the one pushing for democracy and transparency, according to two advisers not authorized to discuss internal conversations. Moreover, it would fuel talk that Biden wasn’t up for the rigors of the job itself.
By jumping out first to frame the stakes of the debate, Biden aides felt that they boxed in Trump: the Republican will either have to agree to terms he does not favor — like debating without an audience — or later pull the plug and look like he is ducking Biden, the advisers said. Another outcome was alluring too: that Trump would go through with the debate and remind Americans why they voted him out of office four years ago.
The two presidential debates planned for late June and early September will be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump alone.
That’s not sitting well with independent Robert F Kennedy Jr, a long-shot presidential candidate who officials from both parties worry could attract voters looking for an alternative to Trump and Biden. Here’s what Kennedy had to say after news broke of Trump and Biden’s plans to debate without him:
Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 15, 2024
They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.…
Kennedy made a name for himself as an anti-vaccine activist, and poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight currently shows him winning about 10% of voters – below the 15% threshold debate hosts CNN and ABC have named to participate in their parleys.
Last week, the New York Times reported that Kennedy once claimed a worm had eaten part of his brain. Here’s more on that:
Biden campaign accuses Trump of 'playing games with debates'
After Donald Trump announced that he had accepted an invitation for a third presidential debate despite Joe Biden’s insistence he would only participate in two, the president’s re-election campaign accused the presumptive Republican nominee of “playing games” over the high-stakes face offs between the two men.
Here’s what Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, had to say:
Donald Trump has a long history of playing games with debates: complaining about the rules, breaking those rules, pulling out at the last minute, or not showing up at all – which he’s done repeatedly in all three cycles he’s run for president. He said he would debate President Biden anytime, anywhere, anyplace. In fact, he’s said and posted it dozens of times with varying degrees of comprehension and basic grammar. President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms. No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates. We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta – if he shows up.
Kristi Noem was once viewed as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, but her prospects seemed to dim after she wrote of killing a dog in her memoir. The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports that the South Dakota governor has now been banned from Native American reservations in her own state after insinuating that their leaders had tied to drug cartels:
Noem, is no longer allowed to step foot on large swaths of her state after another Native American tribe banished her from its reservation after comments she made about tribal leaders benefiting from drug cartels.
The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe on Tuesday confirmed that the tribe had voted to ban the Republican governor from its reservation in central South Dakota. It is the latest development in a widening rupture between Native American tribes in South Dakota and the state’s governor. Noem, an ally of Donald Trump, has embraced his hardline rhetoric on immigration and in recent months has repeatedly claimed that drug cartels are responsible for crime on the state’s reservations.
“We do not have cartels on the reservations,” the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe chairman, Peter Lengkeek, told NPR following Tuesday’s vote.
“We have cartel products, like guns and drugs. But they pass over state highways getting to the reservation,” he continued. “So, putting us all together like that and saying that all tribes are involved in this really shows … the ignorance of the governor’s office.”
Updated
From the Guardian’s Edward Helmore, here’s a rundown of the plan agreed to by Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s campaign this morning for two debates on 27 June and 10 September:
Shortly after the Biden-Harris re-election campaign proposed two TV debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump ahead of November’s presidential vote, both men agreed upon the date of their first debate: 27 June.
CNN confirmed they would host the first debate of 2024 on that date at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia.
On Wednesday morning, Biden said in a video shared on social media: “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”
He then jabbed: “So let’s pick dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” referring to the free day in Trump’s current campaign finance violations trial in New York.
Biden’s proposal bucked a tradition of three debates, typically held in the fall, that are organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Democratic party officials said in a release on Wednesday that moving the timing up, reducing the number of debates, and ending them sooner reflected changes in the “structure of our elections and the interests of voters”.
ABC News has confirmed it is hosting a presidential debate between Trump and Biden on 10 September.
Updated
The day so far
It has been something of a wild morning for Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s campaigns, who came to a sudden agreement over their debate schedule. The story began when a top Biden campaign official announced that the president would be willing to participate in two debates – which Trump, who has long sought to face off against the man who beat him in 2020, quickly said he would be willing to do. In a series of back-and-forth announcements, Biden and Trump agreed to face off on 27 June in an Atlanta event hosted by CNN, and against on 10 September at a yet-to-be-announced location organized by ABC. But the Trump campaign has argued for even more debates, and the former president just announced he had accepted an invitation from Fox News for a third debate in October. Biden has not said if he will participate.
Here’s what else is going on today:
The Biden campaign also pulled out of a series of debates planned by the non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates, striking a blow to an organization that has traditionally organized the encounters between candidates.
The president echoed Clint Eastwood in a video released to announce his plans to face Trump on the debate stage.
Rightwing House lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna proposed awarding Trump Congress’s highest civilian honor.
Trump says he has accepted offer for third debate moderated by Fox News
Donald Trump says he will participate in a third presidential debate hosted by Fox News in October, but it is unclear if Joe Biden, whose campaign has proposed only two encounters between the two men before the November election, will join him.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, saying the event will be hosted by Fox News:
Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that I hereby accept debating Crooked Joe Biden on FoxNews. The date will be Wednesday, October 2nd. The Hosts will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Thank you, DJT!
The Senate may not be Democratic-controlled for long. Republicans are seen as having the edge in retaking the chamber’s majority in the November elections, and, as the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports, took a major step last night to gaining a crucial seat representing West Virginia:
Republicans’ chances of retaking the US Senate were boosted on Tuesday when the governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, cruised to victory in that state’s primary, the highest-profile result on a night of such votes.
Justice is overwhelmingly favoured to beat his Democratic challenger, Glenn Elliott, and fill the US Senate seat now held by Joe Manchin, the only Democrat in statewide elected office.
The most right-leaning Democrat in the Senate, Manchin flirted with a third-party presidential run before deciding to retire.
Democrats control the Senate 51-49 but key Republican targets also include Ohio and Pennsylvania, both swing states, and Montana, a rare western state held by a Democrat.
“It’s an honour to be the Republican nominee,” said Justice, 73, who was elected governor in 2016 as a Democrat but switched allegiance three years later.
“As a patriot and a conservative, I firmly believe in the greatness of America, and I am committed to putting America and West Virginia first.”
Updated
Rightwing Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna has introduced legislation to give Donald Trump a congressional gold medal:
I just introduced a bill to give President Trump a Congressional Gold Medal. Under his leadership, America was re-established as a respected global power, and the world was safer. It's time we give him recognition for it. https://t.co/dozHQx3yg6
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) May 15, 2024
Previous awardees of the medal, the highest civilian honor Congress can give, have included the police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, the former hostages taken by Iran in the 1979-1981 crisis, and Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley.
It’s unclear how far Luna’s proposal will get in the House. Even if it does win approval, the Senate’s Democrats are likely to reject it.
In addition to the two presidential debates, Joe Biden’s re-election campaign proposed a debate between vice-presidential candidates in late July.
Donald Trump has not yet picked a running mate, but is reportedly considering several figures in Republican politics. The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt took a look at some of the contenders last week in The Stakes, our free newsletter covering this year’s election news. You can sign up for it here, and read what Adam found below:
Trump accepts invitations for two debates with Biden
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said he had accepted invitations for two debates with Joe Biden.
The first, hosted by CNN, is scheduled for 27 June in Atlanta, and the second, hosted by ABC, is set for 10 September at a location that has not been announced yet.
Here’s what Trump had to say:
It is my great honor to accept the CNN Debate against Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT in the History of the United States and a true Threat to Democracy, on June 27th. Likewise, I accept the ABC News Debate against Crooked Joe on September 10th. Thank you, DJT!
Updated
Biden says he's accepted invitation for 10 September debate hosted by ABC
Joe Biden just announced he will participate in a debate hosted by ABC on 10 September:
I've also received and accepted an invitation to a debate hosted by ABC on Tuesday, September 10th.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.
Updated
Trump campaign proposes more debates in letter to Biden officials
In a letter to Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, top Donald Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said the former president had accepted their invitation to participate in two debates, while demanding further face offs between the two candidates.
“Today is a good day for America’s voters, now that Joe Biden has FINALLY accepted President Trump’s debate challenge. President Trump and our campaign have been requesting this for months with a consistent message: ANY TIME! ANYWHERE! ANY PLACE!” Wiles and LaCivita write.
They then argue that the two candidates should hold monthly encounters over the course of the summer:
We believe there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves. With the soaring inflation of Bidenomics costing America’s hardworking families at the grocery store and at the gas pump, with our border being totally overrun, with chaos at home, chaos across the world, chaos on our college campuses, we should have one debate per month.
Therefore, we propose a debate in June, a debate in July, a debate in August, and a debate in September, in addition to the Vice Presidential debate. Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate.
We believe the American people deserve more than what the Biden administration has to offer.
Donald Trump has long expressed his eagerness to debate Joe Biden, and did so again earlier today, when he accepted the president’s proposal for two debates.
On Truth Social, Trump said he would be open to even more debates than that. Here’s more:
Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced - He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also the WORST President in the history of the United States, by far. It’s time for a debate so that he can explain to the American People his highly destructive Open Border Policy, new and ridiculous EV Mandates, the allowance of Crushing Inflation, High Taxes, and his really WEAK Foreign Policy, which is allowing the World to “Catch on Fire.” I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September. I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds - That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”
CNN says Trump, Biden to face off in Atlanta studios with no audience present
CNN just put out a press release confirming that Joe Biden and Donald Trump will hold the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign on 27 June in their Atlanta studios.
The face off will take place at 9pm ET, with no audience present “to ensure candidates may maximize the time allotted in the debate”, CNN said. The network said the debate’s moderators would be announced later.
Updated
Trump accepts proposal for 27 June debate with Biden – report
Fox News reports that Donald Trump says he is willing to debate Joe Biden at a CNN-hosted event on 27 June, apparently in Atlanta:
EXCLUSIVE: @realDonaldTrump says he will accept the CNN debate invitation for June 27.
— Brooke Singman (@BrookeSingman) May 15, 2024
Trump tells me “I’ll be there” and says he’s “looking forward to being in beautiful Atlanta.” https://t.co/OOCLwaWsxq
Updated
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has started selling T-shirts that read “Free on Wednesdays”.
It’s a reference to the day when Donald Trump’s business fraud trial typically takes a break, which the president mentioned in his video announcing his willingness to debate Trump:
We hear Donald’s free on Wednesdayshttps://t.co/DgGod9XXhI pic.twitter.com/NS5rq7yyqb
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 15, 2024
Biden says he has accepted invitation for CNN-hosted debate on 27 June
Joe Biden just announced that he is willing to debate Donald Trump on 27 June at a CNN-hosted event:
I’ve received and accepted an invitation from @CNN for a debate on June 27th. Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
In her letter proposing two debates with Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s campaign co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillon also outlined the conditions under which the parleys would take place.
The debates “should be hosted by any broadcast organization that hosted a Republican Primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated – so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable: if both candidates have previously debated on their airwaves, then neither could object to such venue,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.
She also objected to the presence of any third-party candidates: “The debates should be one-on-one, allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College – and not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming President.”
Whichever broadcast network hosts the debate should select a moderator from “among their regular personnel” to avoid any bias, O’Malley Dillon wrote.
Finally, she wanted controls on when a candidate could speak, and for how long:
There should be firm time limits for answers, and alternate turns to speak – so that the time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption. A candidate’s microphone should only be active when it is his turn to speak, to promote adherence to the rules and orderly proceedings.
In a letter proposing two debates with Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s re-election campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon also said the president would not be participating in events organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the traditional host for the candidate face offs.
She named several reasons why the president was snubbing the non-profit organization, including that the commission’s own debate schedule has them beginning “after the American people have a chance to cast their vote early, and doesn’t conclude until after tens of millions of Americans will have already voted.”
She also objected to “the Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense,” and criticized its handling of the debates in 2020.
It was the latest blow for the commission, after the Republican National Committee two years ago voted to withdraw from the organization altogether. Here’s more on that:
Updated
Biden tells Trump to 'make my day' as he proposes June, September debates
In a short video posted on YouTube, Joe Biden channeled Clint Eastwood as he proposed debating Donald Trump twice:
Biden mentioned Wednesday because that is the day Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City usually takes a break. However, the president’s campaign chair proposed scheduling the first debate for late June specifically because it would likely be after that trial’s conclusion.
Trump 'ready and willing' to debate after Biden campaign proposes June, September face-offs
Good morning, US politics blog readers. A big question hanging over the presidential campaign is whether Donald Trump and Joe Biden would debate before the 5 November election. This morning, we appear to have reached an answer: the president’s re-election campaign proposed two debates, one in late June, and the other in September. Not long after, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was “Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times”. In a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon proposed that the first debate take place after the president returns from a summit of G7 leaders, and after the likely conclusion of Trump’s criminal trial in New York City. The second debate would be timed for the period before early voting starts but after campaigning begins in earnest, while a debate of vice-presidential candidates could be held in late July. And while the Commission on Presidential Debates is the traditional host of face-offs between candidates, O’Malley Dillon informed them that Biden would not participate in their proposed events, citing issues with their schedule and moderation.
We’ll let you know what more we hear about this over the course of the day.
Here’s what else is happening:
The US inflation rate dropped slightly in April, just-released labor department data said, a potentially hopeful sign in the fight against the price increase wave that has bedeviled Biden’s presidency.
The House of Representatives will consider a host of Republican messaging bills intended to touch on hot-button issues, including legislation to deport migrants who assault police, and to prevent Washington DC’s city government from changing its criminal justice laws.
Trump’s trial on business fraud charges in New York City takes a break today, and will resume Thursday.
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