Trump Doesn’t Want Extra Debate His Campaign Just Demanded, Falsely Claims Biden Won’t Debate Due to Coronavirus
President Donald Trump contradicted his own campaign by saying he isn’t asking for more than 3 debates, then falsely claimed that former Vice President and current Democratic nominee Joe Biden “is already saying he can’t do the debates because of covid.”
During town hall-style interview on Thursday night’s edition of Fox News’ Hannity, host Sean Hannity referenced the Trump campaign’s recent public demand for a fourth general election debate.
“You said you would like to have more than three debates with Joe Biden,” Hannity told Trump.
“I said I’ll have three, and any amount they want. I didn’t say I want more,” Trump said, then explained “You see, if you say you want more, just to show what a tricky business this is, I want more, they’ll say ‘Oh he feels he’s losing, he wants more,’ so I don’t like to say that.”
“I will do whatever number they want to do. It’s okay with me,” Trump said.
“But a minimum of three,” Hannity injected, to which Trump replied “Yeah I guess the three is the minimum.”
That’s a step further than Trump went last week, when he completely sidestepped the question of whether he would debate Biden at all.
“Now he’s already saying that he can’t do the debates because of covid. Can you believe it? I can’t do the debates because of covid,” Trump said. “That was, I just heard a little inkling of it two days ago, I said watch this one.”
Trump’s claim is false, Biden has said on multiple occasions that he’s eager to debate Trump, including at an April fundraiser where the former VP said “I can hardly wait to debate Donald Trump. Are you kidding? Look, I’m ready to debate him. Zoom or Skype or Slack or Hangouts or in person, anytime, anywhere he wants.”
The “inkling” to which Trump refers might be his own May claim that he’d heard a “rumor” to that effect, although that was longer than two days ago. The source for that rumor may have been the very same report in which Biden said he’d debate Trump anytime and anywhere. According to the pool report for the event by The Washington Post’s Annie Linskey “One question invoked a rumor that donor had heard that Biden would refuse to debate Trump.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
