Biden and Trump agree to debates. And then debate about more debates.

Having spent months avoiding direct engagement on when and where to debate, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden seemed to agree on a time and place in a matter of minutes on Wednesday, setting up high-stakes showdowns in late June and mid September.

The former president’s campaign announced that it accepted an invitation to debate the current president on CNN on June 27 and on ABC on Sept. 10. Biden, having previously said that he had “received and accepted an invitation” from CNN then agreed to participate in ABC News’ forum, too.

The agreement does not ensure that either of the debates will happen. In fact, shortly after the campaigns agreed to two debates, the Trump campaign proposed two more, only for the Biden campaign to accuse it of “playing games” and rejecting additional negotiations: “no more debate about debates.”

But even that initial agreement signals an interest in both camps to have a public sparring. Both Biden and Trump have said they would not participate in the Commission on Presidential Debates’ proposed schedule, placing in serious doubt whether any debates would take place at all.

The Trump and Biden campaigns held brief exchanges about the debates in late April, according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions, who was granted anonymity to discuss them. The person said that the contact was after Biden’s appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," where the president said he would be “happy” to debate Trump. But the discussions, a Biden campaign official stressed, were not particularly formal.

Whatever backchanneling existed burst out into the open early Wednesday, when O’Malley Dillon cited several reasons for pulling out of the CPD’s planned debates: that the schedule would take place too late in the process, that its model is antiquated, and that the commission was “unable or unwilling to enforce the rules” during the 2020 debates, when Trump famously talked over Biden and the moderator.

“We are advising you now of this decision, months in advance of the dates you announced you are planning for, to enable you to avoid incurring further production, and other expenses on the assumption that the Democratic nominee, President Biden, will participate. For the reasons stated above, he will not,” O’Malley Dillon writes.

Trump, for his part, has previously leveled heavy criticisms against the CPD — which the Republican National Committee disavowed two years ago and said its candidates would not cooperate with — arguing that it is biased against him.

On Wednesday, he renewed his criticism of the commission, saying (without providing evidence) that “the Commission got caught cheating with me.” Having rapidly, if not informally, agreed to two debates outside of the CPD schedule, the next hurdles will center around whether each campaign can agree on the logistics of each forum.

O’Malley Dillon said that the debates should be hosted by a broadcast organization that moderated both a Republican primary debate in 2016 and a Democratic primary debate in 2020, in order to create an acceptable balance. Both ABC and CNN meet that criteria.

CNN on Wednesday stated it would host the debate at its studios in Atlanta, without an audience. The network confirmed anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would moderate the debate, which will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

Biden’s decision to call for two debates is, itself, notable. Democrats had privately wondered whether the president would duck the debates entirely in line with his lower public profile approach to the office.

The president’s team had wrestled for months as to how to approach the debates. Senior advisers felt that they could not skip them, as the reelection campaign has been positioning itself as the one pushing for democracy and transparency, according to two advisers not authorized to discuss internal conversations. Moreover, it would fuel talk that Biden wasn’t up for the rigors of the job itself.

By jumping out first to frame the stakes of the debate, Biden aides felt that they boxed in Trump: the Republican will either have to agree to terms he does not favor – like debating without an audience – or later pull the plug and look like he is ducking Biden, the advisers said. Another outcome was alluring too: that Trump would go through with the debate and remind Americans why they voted him out of office four years ago.

Ron Klain, Biden’s longtime adviser and his first White House chief of staff, will take time away from his new job at Airbnb to help prepare the president for the debates, according to one aide.

The CPD emerged from Wednesday’s chaotic developments as the clear loser. The commission had scheduled four debates — three for the presidential nominees and one for their running mates — beginning on Sept. 16. The final debate was scheduled for Oct. 9. But those now appear to be in great danger, if not entirely dead.

“The American public deserves substantive debates from the leading candidates for president and vice president,” the commission said in a statement, adding that its 2024 sites, “are prepared to host debates on dates chosen to accommodate early voters.”

If accepted in its entirety, the two date proposal agreed to by Biden and Trump also would shut the door on any potential participation from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or any other independent or third-party candidates.

It’s very unlikely Kennedy or another candidate could qualify for the CNN debate. According to the network’s rules, a candidate must be on the ballot in enough states to earn a majority of Electoral College votes by June 20. While Kennedy’s campaign and its allies are mounting a massive effort to meet the state-by-state qualifications to get on the ballot, many of the states won’t certify the candidates who have qualified until later in the summer.

Additionally, candidates must earn 15 percent in at least four major national polls beginning in mid-March and running through June 20.

In a post on X, Kennedy said Biden and Trump “are trying to exclude me from their debate,” and that the agreement between the two major-party candidates “undermines democracy.”