Former President Donald J. Trump said late Friday that he had agreed with Fox News to debate Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 4, a proposal that has not yet been accepted by the Harris campaign, and that he would not participate in the debate on ABC News that had been scheduled for the following week.
According to Mr. Trump’s post on his social media site, Truth Social, the Fox News debate would take place at a to-be-determined location in Pennsylvania, one of the most consequential battleground states, and moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
The Harris campaign on Saturday declined to commit to the Fox News debate and said it was still planning on a Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC.
“Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out. He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept. 10,” Michael Tyler, the Harris campaign’s communications director said in a statement. He added: “We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to. Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that unless he’s too scared to show up on the 10th.”
A spokeswoman for Fox News did not respond to questions.
Mr. Trump said that the Fox News debate would have a live audience; the previous debate between President Biden and Mr. Trump was hosted by CNN in an empty venue. Though both campaigns agreed to the format of the first debate, Mr. Trump had bemoaned the lack of a crowd.
He further added the rules would be similar to the CNN debate, though he did not specify which rules. That debate had included mic cuts to prevent interruption.
Mr. Trump also said that he is “totally prepared to accept” Ms. Harris as the Democrats’ new candidate. Since her campaign suddenly took shape after Mr. Biden dropped out of the race about two weeks ago, Mr. Trump has characterized her ascendancy as a “coup” within the Democratic Party. In his debate announcement, the former president complained about the shake-up.
“I spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, Time, and Effort fighting Joe, and when I won the Debate, they threw a new Candidate into the ring,” Mr. Trump said on his social media site on Friday, adding that he hoped to tie Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden’s policies.
The Sept. 4 date is close to the start of some states’ early voting windows and long after Ms. Harris presumably would have clinched the nomination from her party. (She is expected to secure the nomination once the Democrats’ virtual roll call vote concludes on Monday.)
The first presidential debate between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, on June 27, was among the most consequential presidential debates in history, according to experts. Mr. Biden gave a halting performance that contrasted strongly with Mr. Trump, who spoke vigorously while repeatedly advancing falsehoods.
Mr. Biden’s garbled responses supercharged concerns among his Democratic colleagues about his age and health, as well as his ability to beat Mr. Trump in the general election. After several weeks of declining poll numbers and mounting pressure from key allies, Mr. Biden announced on July 21 that he would withdraw from the race.
Since then, Ms. Harris has challenged Mr. Trump to debate her and criticized his reluctance to commit to a date. As recently as Friday morning, in an interview with Fox Business, he was refusing to say whether he would debate Ms. Harris.
When Mr. Biden was still in the race, Mr. Trump had agreed to a second debate on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC. (The former president also filed a lawsuit, which is moving forward, against the network for defamation.) After the president dropped out, Ms. Harris said she would be willing to debate in Mr. Biden’s place, but Mr. Trump was noncommittal.
“Well Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage,” Ms. Harris said at her rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. “Because as the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.’”
The post Trump Backs Out of ABC Debate and Proposes One with Harris on Fox appeared first on New York Times.
