Joe Biden Already Backing Off 'Any Time, Any Place' on Debates After Donald Trump Calls His Bluff

As RedState reported earlier, after months of being egged on by Donald Trump to step up and participate in presidential debates, President Joe Biden said on Twitter Wednesday morning that he was challenging the former POTUS to two of them, which Biden suggested should be held in June and September.

"Well, make my day, pal, I’ll even do it twice," Biden said in a pre-recorded, heavily edited 14-second video. "So let’s pick the dates, Donald – I hear you’re free on Wednesdays."

Itching for the opportunity, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee accepted the challenge, and not long after, it was announced that CNN would be hosting the June debate, with ABC News hosting the September one.

In a tweet noting his approval of the CNN debate, Biden, who is polling behind Trump in key battleground states, wrote, "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."

But in what will come as no surprise to anyone, Biden is already backing down from his "any time, any place" proclamation, as evidenced by Team Biden's refusal to entertain the idea of any more debates including a third debate at Fox News for early October, which Trump claimed in a Truth Social post (seen below) that he had "accepted":

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!

Donald Trump Truth Social 12;44 PM 05/15/24 pic.twitter.com/zluFeZK67n
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) May 15, 2024

Biden-Harris campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said in response to the Trump campaign's call for more debates and Trump's specific mention of the alleged Fox News debate that the only terms Biden would abide by were the ones he'd already set - for two one-on-one debates where everything would be tightly controlled:

“He said he would debate President Biden anytime, anywhere, anyplace,” O’Malley Dillon continued. “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,” she said. “We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta – if he shows up.”

While Fox News hasn't yet publicly commented on Trump's post about a potential third debate as of this writing, according to the terms Biden set for his participation in the other two debates, the network wouldn't of course be on the approved network list:

The Biden campaign also said that the debate host should be a network that had sponsored a 2016 Republican primary debate and a 2020 Democratic primary debate, terms that exclude networks like MSNBC and Fox News.

So much for "anywhere, any time, any place." Bluff called. That sure didn't take long.