Is Trump Afraid to Debate Kamala Harris?
He hasn’t yet committed to a face-off with the vice-president.
June’s presidential debate dramatically changed the course of the 2024 election. President Joe Biden’s dreadful showing against Donald Trump led to his dropping out of the race, and now Vice-President Kamala Harris is pretty much set to become the new Democratic nominee. As Harris hits the campaign trail in earnest, the question remains: Will we actually get to see her and Trump face off in a debate? While Harris has said she’s ready, Trump has been noncommittal so far. Here’s what we know.
First, when is the next presidential debate?
Before Biden announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, he and Trump had agreed to participate in a second and final debate to be hosted by ABC News on September 10 at 9 p.m. World News Tonight anchor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis were set to moderate.
Will Harris and Trump debate on that day anyway?
That remains unclear. On July 25 — three days after securing enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee — Harris told reporters she was committed to debating Trump. “I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she said. Trump has been more skittish, going back and forth on whether he’ll actually participate. For its part, ABC News has said the network is moving “full steam ahead” with preparations for the scheduled debate.
What has Trump said about debating Harris, then?
Within hours of Biden’s withdrawal, Trump began distancing himself from his commitment, posting on Truth Social that the next debate “should be held on FoxNews,” an extremely friendly network to Trump, “rather than very biased ABC.” Fox News quickly proposed a Harris-Trump face-off that it would host on September 17, but to date, neither campaign has commented publicly on whether the candidates would participate.
Trump’s campaign then appeared to backtrack further. Trump’s communications director issued a statement saying that due to the “continued political chaos surrounding” Biden and the Democratic Party, “general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee.” He went on to say, “It would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.”
Four days later, Trump wavered once again in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “I want to do a debate,” he said. “But I also can say this: Everybody knows who I am, and now people know who she is.” Ingraham pressed him about debating Harris, and he replied, “The answer is ‘yes.’ I’ll probably end up debating.” Still, Trump remained noncommittal: “But I can also make a case for not doing it.”
If Trump ultimately decides to skip a debate, it wouldn’t be the first time. Between August 2023 and January 2024, Republicans held five primary debates. The former president didn’t participate in any.
How has Harris talked about the debate?
Harris is clearly itching to face Trump. Following the staffer’s comments implying that Trump would back out, her campaign wrote on X, “What happened to ‘any time, any place’?” referencing his previous remarks calling for debates against Biden to be held “ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE.”
What happened to “any time, any place”? https://t.co/HlR6UmlZxx
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 26, 2024
And after Trump’s interview with Ingraham, the Harris campaign sent out a press release with a subject line calling Trump “Duckin’ Don.” “It’s clear from tonight’s question-dodging: He’s scared he’ll have to defend his running mate’s weird attacks on women or his own calls to end elections in America in a debate against the vice-president,” Harris spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.
The campaign also posted a clip on social media from Harris’s 2019 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Speaking about a potential debate against Trump in that election cycle, she said, “Well, Jimmy, if I do debate President Trump, I’m sure it’ll be a competitive face-off where either one of us could end up on top.” Fallon responded, “Really?” to which she shot back, “No. I’d wipe the floor with him.”