Joe Biden's campaign said he'll continue debating President Donald Trump, even while calls are growing for future debates to be canceled after Tuesday's contentious opening event.
"I don't know how many different ways we can say it. Yes, we are going to do the debates," Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told reporters Tuesday night, reports The Hill. "I would imagine there will be some additional conversations [with the Commission on Presidential Debates]. But yeah, we are committing to attending the debates."
Biden's running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also said Tuesday that Biden plans to debate Trump on Oct. 15 and 22, as he is "never going to refuse to talk to the American people."
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who had worked under President Barack Obama, called on the Commission on Presidential Debates to outline a plan for how debates will work going forward, including cutting off microphones for interruptions.
"2020 is far too important to have to more episodes of that," Gibbs said. "Because that was not a debate."
Some members of the media also said the future debates should be canceled. David Graham of The Atlantic wrote that if there is any "sense or mercy left in this nation," the first debate will be the last one, because "the event was a shambolic shout fest, with scarcely a single morsel of substance to be found."
Slate also called for future debates to be canceled, commenting that Tuesday night's "degrading spectacle didn't show voters anything they don't already know."
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, who served as White House communications director under President George W. Bush, however, said Biden needs to fulfill his commitment.
"You don't stand up to a bully, who is trying to do whatever he's doing, lift his leg and pee on our democracy, by not showing up and standing up to the bully," Wallace said Tuesday night, reports Fox News. "You stand there because you made a deal and you hold up your end of the deal."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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