President Biden drew mockery Wednesday for the number of jump cuts in his debate challenge video to Donald Trump — with allies of the former president saying its a sign of who would win in a showdown.
Biden, 81, released the 14 second clip early Wednesday throwing down an offer to debate his predecessor while insinuating that Trump, 77, is too chicken to face him.
“In a super short 14 second video, the Biden campaign needed to do 5 jump cuts because Crooked Joe couldn’t deliver a clean reading. Total disaster,” Trump campaign adviser Steven Cheung posted on X.
“Biden’s video has 5 cuts in 13 seconds. What will Biden do in a debate when his many handlers can’t edit and splice his sentences together,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote with laughing emojis.
“Biden made five cuts in 14 seconds to say 51 words. I think the world knows who will win this debate,” conservative podcast host Graham Allen said.
“Biden needed 5 cuts to make it through this 13 second video,” pundit Matt Walsh chided.
“lol. Biden’s comms director says he ‘did not mince words’ in this video. They literally cut them up,” talk radio host Vince Coglianese posted on X, with a clip of Biden-Harris campaign director Michael Tyler’s interview on MSNBC.
The Biden-Harris campaign quickly shrugged off the insults from Trump world.
The “Trump campaign [is] desperate because they’ve been begging to debate and he got called out,” a Biden campaign adviser told The Post.
“So they are grasping at straws trying to make a common online [video-editing] tactic be an attack,” the adviser added, noting the video was filmed at the White House.
Biden and Trump quickly agreed to a June 27 debate in Atlanta Georgia hosted by CNN at 9 p.m., followed by a Sept. 10 face-off hosted by ABC News.
Trump, who skipped all 2024 GOP verbal rumbles, has long needled Biden over the debates, issuing perennial taunts and chiding that the president was too scared to face him.
The former president insisted that the two face off in a verbal bout before the fall events that the Commission on Presidential Debates planned.
On Wednesday, Biden sought to put the onus on Trump.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal,” Biden chided in the video posted on X.
The Biden-Harris campaign then outlined a pitch for one-on-one debates in June and September between Trump and Biden as well as a vice-presidential debate in July.
His team sought to avoid “squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming president” — a jab at environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And the campaign suggested there shouldn’t be an audience and that the mics should only be live when candidates are speaking to block Trump from interrupting.
In a rare reference to Trump’s ongoing hush money trial in Manhattan, Biden taunted his processor saying “I hear you’re free on Wednesday,” in a nod to the weekly courtroom reprieve Trump receives.
His campaign also promoted “Free on Wednesdays” T-shirts.
Trump was quick to agree to a debate, though it’s not entirely clear whether he was amenable to the structure Biden’s team laid out.
He also didn’t shy away from raising expectations.
“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced — He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also the WORST President in the history of the United States, by far,” Trump responded via Truth Social.
“Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’”
Trump and Biden only squared off in two debates during the 2020 election cycle, after the 45th president opted out of the second planned event amid a feud with the COVID-19 rules and moderator.
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson