Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden rejected calls for him to skip the debates against President Donald Trump, vowing to confront the president if he makes false claims, The Washington Post reports.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Biden should not debate Trump so he doesn’t “legitimize” him.
“I don’t think that there should be any debates,” Pelosi told reporters. “I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts.”
“I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States,” she added. “I think that he’ll probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.”
Biden says he plans to debate:
Biden told MSNBC that he plans to attend the debates, vowing to serve as a “fact checker on the floor.”
“Here’s the deal with bullies, I understand how they work,” Biden said in a separate interview on CNN. “And I’m going to play by the rules of the debate commission and we’re going to have a debate.”
Pelosi had called for the two candidates to hold individual events where they take questions.
“Let that be a conversation with the American people,” she said. “Not an exercise in skullduggery.”
Biden resuming in-person events:
Biden said during a fundraiser this week that he will begin doing in-person events in a “way that is totally consistent with being responsible.”
Biden said he is considering holding in-person events in swing states Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
Biden said he would “meet people where it matters — not at irresponsible rallies, or staged for TV to boost egos, but real people’s communities, in real local businesses, in their lives.”
