Pelosi says Biden and Trump shouldn’t debate. Here’s what the candidates say they want

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there shouldn’t be “any debates” between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“I don’t think that there should be any debates,” Pelosi said on Thursday, according to The Hill. “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 continued.

Pelosi said Trump will “act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency” and “belittle what the debates are supposed to be about.” Instead, she thinks the candidates should answer questions separately in a “conversation with the American people.”

Trump has pushed for more debates or to shift them earlier on the calendar while Biden has committed to sticking to the debate schedule.

What does Trump want?

Trump’s campaign requested to add another debate or to move the debates earlier, which was rejected by the Commission on Presidential Debates earlier in August, The New York Times reported.

Trump said the current schedule with three debates in September and October is “useless” because many people already will have voted by mail.

“How can voters be sending in Ballots starting, in some cases, one month before the First Presidential Debate. Move the First Debate up,” Trump tweeted. “A debate, to me, is a Public Service. Joe Biden and I owe it to the American People!”

In June, Trump’s campaign began pushing for more debates, spearheaded by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He had a call with Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, and asked for a fourth debate and for debates before the early voting period, according to Politico.

“We want fair debates. We want them sooner, and we want a bigger schedule,” Parscale said. “We also don’t want them up against football games competing for viewers. As many Americans as possible need to see the stark differences between the accomplishments and leadership of President Trump and the failed record and sleepiness of Joe Biden.”

Trump also said on Wednesday that he would call for drug tests before the first presidential debate on Sept. 29.

“Nobody thought that he was even going to win,” Trump told The Washington Examiner. “Because his debate performances were so bad. Frankly, his best performance was against Bernie. We’re going to call for a drug test, by the way, because his best performance was 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. And we are going to call for a drug test because there’s no way — you can’t do that.”

“I don’t know how he could have been so incompetent in his debate performances and then all of a sudden be OK against Bernie,” Trump continued. “My point is, if you go back and watch some of those numerous debates, he was so bad. He wasn’t even coherent. And against Bernie, he was. And we’re calling for a drug test.”

What about Biden?

Biden’s campaign has called for Trump’s push for earlier and more debates a “distraction” and confirmed that he would participate in debates as planned.

“We’re glad that Donald Trump is now following Joe Biden’s lead from June and — at long last— has accepted the commission’s invitation to debate,” TJ Ducklo, a Biden spokesman said Thursday, according to The New York Times.

“As we have said for months, the commission will determine the dates and times of the debates, and Joe Biden will be there,” Ducklo said. “Now that Donald Trump’s transparent attempt to distract from his disastrous response to the virus is over, maybe now he can focus on saving American lives and getting our economy back on track.”

Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, confirmed in June that Biden will participate in debates scheduled for Sept. 29, Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, McClatchy News previously reported.

“Joe Biden looks forward to facing Donald Trump in a multi-debate series that the American people have come to expect from their leaders; we hope that President Trump would not break that tradition or make excuses for a refusal to participate,” O’Malley Dillon said in the letter, according to CNN.

“No one should be fooled: the Trump campaign’s new position is a debate distraction,” she wrote, according to CNN.