WASHINGTON - Ex-President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2024 presidential debate wouldn’t have happened if his longtime advisor, Westlake native Steve Ricchetti, had his way.

In a marathon interview with House Oversight Committee investigators over the summer, Ricchetti revealed he was one of the few senior advisors who opposed having Biden debate Trump at all, let alone doing so unusually early in the campaign cycle.

His reasoning? Their 2020 campaign debates were brutal, and he didn’t think there was much to gain.

“I just thought that what he would have to go through in a debate and what he — what was gotten out of the debate in 2020 that I just thought it had the potential to be, you know, vicious and personal and not too edifying for anyone in the country,” Ricchetti told investigators in

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