Biden stops short of committing to debates with GOP nominee next year

President Joe Biden’s campaign is not yet committing to general election debates next year, the latest sign that a staple of modern White House campaigns may not be in play in 2024.

Biden, who will land in Los Angeles for a wave of fund-raising on Friday, has been swapping increasingly bitter barbs with the Republican front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Should both secure their party’s nominations, debates would be much anticipated — but may not happen at all.

Just before Wednesday’s fourth GOP debate at the University of Alabama — none of which have included Trump, who taps his wide lead in the polls as his rationale for bowing out — Quentin Fulks, Biden’s top deputy campaign manager, told reporters that the reelection campaign would “look at the schedule” that the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates released last month.  The focus for now, Fulks said,  is on assembling a national campaign footprint.

“We will have those conversations,” Fulks said at a Democratic news conference at Wednesday’s Republican presidential primary debate site in Alabama. “But right now,” Fulks said, “our focus is on making sure we continue to build out a campaign and infrastructure that’s going to be able to be competitive in 2024.”Pressed again, Fulks shifted the focus to Trump and the GOP’s “divisive primary, where their front-runner is not attending debates,” adding that Biden’s team “is focusing on what we need to do to win an election next year.”

Trump has skipped all GOP primary debates, yet he has said a general election campaign would be different.

“We have to debate,” he told Fox News host Bret Baier in a June interview. “He and I have to definitely debate. That’s what I love. The two of us have to debate.”

The Republican primary candidates set to be on stage Wednesday were required to sign a pledge vowing to participate in only those debates sanctioned by the Republican National Committee. The committee has not — and likely will not — sanction any general election debates organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, having voted unanimously in April 2022 to withdraw from such debates after alleging the commission is biased.

The RNC could decide to release candidates from the pledge, although the GOP’s disdain for the commission remains. Trump never signed the pledge.

Meanwhile, Biden and Trump have amped up their bitter political rhetoric in recent days. Trump declined to rule out abusing power if he returns to the White House after Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity asked him Tuesday to respond to growing Democratic criticism of his campaign verbiage.

Trump has talked about targeting his rivals — referring to them as “vermin” — and vowed to seek retribution if he wins a second term for what he argues are politically motivated prosecutions against him. As Trump has dominated the Republican presidential primary, President Joe Biden has stepped up his own warnings, contending Trump is “ determined to destroy American democracy.”

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked Trump in the interview taped in Davenport, Iowa. “Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump then repeated his assertion. “I love this guy,” he said of the Fox News host. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”

Trump’s stump speeches and sweeping plans for a second term that include firing large swaths of the federal bureaucracy and targeting his rivals have alarmed Democrats and become a chief election argument for Biden as he prepares for a potential rematch against Trump.

“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

At a series of fundraisers Tuesday, Biden again warned that Trump and his allies are out to “destroy” democratic institutions as he assailed the GOP front-runner, who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and is facing criminal charges connected to those efforts.

Biden’s week-long wave of fundraisers will continue in Southern California this weekend.  The president and First lady Dr. Jill Biden will touch down in Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 8 for a three-day visit that will include his first Hollywood fundraisers since the end of the strikes by actors and screenwriters.

The fundraisers will feature stars such as Barbra Streisand, directors Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner, and “Scandal” showrunner Shonda Rhimes, topping a long bill of celebrities. As of Wednesday, Dec. 6, it’s wasn’t known if the president would be fronting any events where the public could catch a glimpse of him, or where he could buoy other local Democratic candidates.

Jill Biden will tour research laboratories at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Friday as part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, the White House announced on Wednesday.

On Saturday, the First Lady will speak at a private fundraiser for the Biden Victory Fund, according to the White House.

Staff writer Steve Scauzillo and the Associated Press contributed to this report