Donald Trump Campaign Requests Fourth Presidential Debate with Joe Biden

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign formally requested a fourth presidential debate on Wednesday.

The campaign letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates requested an earlier debate, calling the current debate calendar outdated.

“Simply put, the Commission’s current approach is an outdated dinosaur and not reflective of voting realities in 2020,” Trump campaign representative Rudy Giuliani wrote in a letter to the commission, released publicly.

The campaign noted that the earliest debate, on September 29, would occur after millions of voters in 16 different states would have already voted early.

Here is the current debate schedule:

First presidential debate:
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

Vice presidential debate:
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

Second presidential debate:
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, Florida

Third presidential debate:
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee

The Trump campaign argued that perhaps the commission could even shift one of the debates earlier in the calendar if they did not want to schedule a fourth debate.

“The solution is easy: add an additional debate in early September before the first ballots are sent out in North Carolina on September 4, 2020, or, move up the final debate currently scheduled for October 22, 2020 into the first week in September,” the letter from Giuliani read.

The letter even offered a list of debate moderators that they would be willing to consider:

Bret Baier
Gerry Baker
Maria Bartiromo
Shannon Bream
David Brody
Rachel Campos-Duffy
Kevin Cirilli
Larry Elder
Saagar Enjeti
Harris Faulkner
Major Garrett
Michael Goodwin
Ambrosio Hernandez
Joe Kernen
Hoda Kotb
Susan Li
Bill Hemmer
Hugh Hewitt
Tom Llamas
Dagen McDowell
David Muir
Norah O’Donnell
Charles Payne
Rick Santelli

Earlier Wednesday, President Trump signaled that he was dissatisfied with the debate calendar, in an interview on Fox and Friends. 

“[W]e should have the debates. The one problem I have, the debate’s very late,” he said. “It’s at the end of September and a lot of ballots will already be cast by that time. They want to make the debates as late as possible.”