President Joe Biden was implored by his closest advisers to participate in his ill-fated debate against now-President Donald Trump, which ended his campaign and precipitated former Vice President Kamala Harris replacing him as the 2024 Democratic nominee.
In a six-page memo, dated April 15, Biden’s advisers underscored how the then-president should debate Trump “as early as possible” because the Commission on Presidential Debates schedule would have started on Sept. 16 when many battleground states had already commenced early voting and voter registration deadlines would have passed.
“By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible before we are deep in the summer months with the conventions, Olympics, and family vacations taking precedence,” Biden’s advisers wrote. “In addition, the earlier YOU are able to debate the better, so that the American people can see YOU standing next to Trump and showing the strength of YOUR leadership, compared to Trump’s weakness and chaos.”
The advisers also suggested that Biden debate Trump twice during his campaign and agree to a plan with his opponent as quickly as possible so he could “enter the debate process from a position of strength.”
The memo, poised to be published in Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf’s upcoming book 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, additionally detailed advice regarding debate preparation in “three parts.”
The three parts included “practice at different opportunities with ongoing press and radio engagements, question and answer sessions as part of appropriate and pre-planned campaign engagements, and more formal activities, like a campaign taped town hall.”
“Intensive prep in the lead up to the debate, similar to what was done around [State of the Union]-prep — we would build out debate prep at Camp David for at least a five-day stretch leading up to YOUR debate appearances,” Biden’s advisers wrote.
Instead, Biden’s June 27 debate against Trump punctuated the public perception the former president was too old to remain commander in chief, walking stiffly onto the CNN set, coughing twice during his first answer, and then losing his train of thought within the first 15 minutes in response to a question about the care economy and drug prices. He, too, was captured looking at Trump with his mouth agape. His performance contributed to his eventual decision to step down from running and paved the way for Harris’s 100-day campaign, in which she eventually lost to Trump.
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Despite the memo, Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf simultaneously report that the advice that Biden should debate Trump as early as possible was not unanimous. One donor reportedly told Biden’s advisers to “find an excuse” for the former president not to debate after a concerning appearance during a Chicago fundraiser, the trio writes in an excerpt published by Politico on Monday.
2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America comes after the Wall Street Journal reported last weekend that Hunter Biden asserted his presence in his father’s White House, attempting to pressure the Democratic National Committee into paying his legal fees amid federal prosecutions for tax and gun crimes, participating in administration phone calls, and encouraging his father to pardon him as he did before the end of his one and only term.
The book similarly comes as House Republicans ramp up their investigations into the Biden White House, particularly the former president and his advisers’ use of his autopen during his administration.