With the presidential candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties already formalized in Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the two are set to face off against each other for the first time in the first of three debates. However, Trump recently demanded that both he and Biden undergo a drug test before the upcoming debate.
The Trump campaign as well as allies of the president have constantly tried to depict Biden as mentally incompetent and slow. However, Trump raised suspicions over the former vice president’s sudden improvement during the Democratic primary debates and thus demanded that the two of them undergo a drug test before the first presidential debate. When pressed for proof to support his suspicion, Trump did not provide any, and instead said that he “is pretty good at this stuff.”
The first presidential debate between Biden and Trump will take place on September 29. The second and third presidential debates will take place on October 15 and 22 respectively. Senator Kamala Harris and vice president Mike Pence will be having one vice presidential debate on October 7.
Trump told the Washington Examiner how Biden was supposedly incoherent during the first Democratic primary debates. “I don’t know how he could have been so incompetent in his debate performances and suddenly be ok against Bernie. It wasn’t that he was Winston Churchill because he wasn’t, but it was a normal, boring debate. You know, nothing amazing happened,” said Trump.
As both candidates are set to prepare for the upcoming debate in a month from now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the former vice president should opt not to debate Trump. Stating this during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi reasoned that Trump would undermine the presidential debates.
“I don’t think that there should be any debates. I do not think that the President of the United States has comported himself in a way that has any association with truth, evidence, data, and facts,” said Pelosi.
Pelosi’s comments follow the Biden campaign’s push back against accusations lobbied by the Trump campaign that Biden does not want to debate his Republican opponent. The Biden campaign has stressed that the former vice president intends to debate Trump.