Donald Trump Announces New Debating Format for Upcoming Face-off With President Joe Biden

Despite his strong preference for standing, Donald Trump revealed on Wednesday, May 22, that he has agreed to "sit at a table" with President Joe Biden for their forthcoming debates, as reported by the New York Post. According to Trump, the request for a seated format came from the campaign team of the 81-year-old president.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president clarified that while his personal inclination would be to "walk out to a podium" and "stand for an hour and a half or two hours," he has agreed to the seated arrangement. "I hear now we’re sitting at tables. I don’t want to sit at a table. I said, ‘No, let’s stand.’ But they want to sit at a table. So we’ll be sitting at a table as opposed to doing it the way you should be, in my opinion, in a debate," the 77-year-old ex-POTUS told John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on the Cats & Cosby Show. "But they have [Biden] sitting at a table, so that’s not so good. But I agree to their requests because I want to debate him," Trump revealed. "If [Biden] gets through the debate, they’ll say it was brilliant," he continued to argue. 

Describing the seated debate format as "one of the many" requests from the Biden campaign, the former president emphasized his intention to confront Biden on the tumultuous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 during discussions with Catsimatidis and Cosby. Significantly, the teams representing Trump and Biden have both confirmed their participation in the two scheduled debates, slated for June 27 on CNN and September 10 on ABC News. Whether both debates will adopt the seated format remains uncertain. 

Additionally, there will be no live audience at either event, as per the Biden campaign's preference. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), traditionally responsible for organizing such events since the 1988 election cycle, is not involved in the agreement between the two camps. While the details of the vice-presidential debate are still pending agreement, both campaigns have expressed readiness to participate. Trump prefers Fox News to host the presidential debate, while Biden prefers CBS.

Trump and Biden both faced criticism from numerous online users after announcing a different format for the upcoming debate. One Facebook user @Judy Mohr Collins wrote, "He isn't intelligent enough to debate a kindergartner, let alone a grown, intelligent man. All he'd do is try to turn everything to him and whine about how unfair everything is. And declare 'I did nothing wrong' over and over. It'd be a pure waste of your time." Another user @Daniel Ponton wrote, "This is going to be really embarrassing for Joe." User @Traci Geroux Woytcke chimed in, "The only reason Trump would want to debate him is to get his stutter to make him look bad. You all forget Trump was a Democrat until he decided to run for president to get away with postponing his NY bad business charges and his loans that were due from China. Wake up people."