Immediately after Tuesday’s debate — in which Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly baited former President Donald J. Trump on abortion, the size of his rally crowds, his reputation with foreign leaders and more — Ms. Harris’s campaign said she was on board for another.
“Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate,” her campaign said on social media. “Is Donald Trump?”
Speaking to reporters in the post-debate spin room Tuesday night, and to Fox News on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump suggested that he was not inclined to agree.
“I don’t know that I want to do another debate,” he said on Fox. He claimed that Ms. Harris only wanted one because, in his accounting, she had lost Tuesday’s — though her campaign had agreed to do two debates before she took the stage.
“When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate. Or they ask for a fight. So in this case a debate,” Mr. Trump said. “When a fighter loses, he says: ‘I want a rematch. I want a rematch.’ Always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch.”
During the prolonged negotiations over Tuesday’s matchup on ABC, Mr. Trump had specifically called for a debate on Fox News, at one point trying to get that substituted for the ABC debate, which he had agreed to when President Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. But in Mr. Trump’s interview Wednesday, he indicated that he would be hesitant to do a second debate even if Fox hosted it.
His interviewers on “Fox & Friends” noted that the network had proposed one to be moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who moderated a Republican primary debate last year. (Mr. Trump did not participate in any of the primary debates.)
“Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret,” Mr. Trump said, criticizing their coverage of Tuesday’s debate. “I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I’d love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura.” He was referring to Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham, three Fox hosts who are openly supportive of Mr. Trump.
“I didn’t think Martha and Bret were good last night,” he added. “I thought Jesse was fantastic last night, what he said. Jesse really got it. Jesse said, ‘Trump won that debate.’ That was — we won that debate by a lot. No, I wouldn’t want Martha involved. But I would take some others.”
The Fox News proposal, which calls for a debate in October, is not the only one on the table. A forum on NBC News has also been proposed for late September.
“I think that both campaigns are going to have to agree to a time, but I think the vice president is open to a debate in October,” Ms. Harris’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said when asked Wednesday morning on CNN about the NBC proposal.
The only other debate currently confirmed is between the vice-presidential nominees, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Senator JD Vance of Ohio. That will take place on CBS News on Oct. 1.
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