The Kamala Harris presidential campaign is seizing on the announcement this week from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump that he is abandoning previous plans for a general election debate hosted by ABC News on September 10. The debate plans were set up when the expected Democratic presidential nominee was still incumbent President Joe Biden.
Now, Biden has withdrawn from this year’s presidential race, endorsing Harris — currently the vice president — to take his place, and the latter quickly assembled support from public figures in the Democratic Party and grassroots Dems. The latter group fueled a staggering $200 million in fundraising for Harris across just her first week of running.
And instead of the planned ABC debate, Trump now wants a Fox News-hosted event with a “full arena audience” — the inclusion of which could significantly change the tenor of the whole thing, particularly in comparison to the televised debate held between Trump and Biden in June with no audience.
“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,” said a prepared statement released Saturday by the Harris campaign. “He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10.”
Harris, meanwhile, is sticking to the debate scheduled with ABC. “It’s interesting how “any time, any place” becomes “one specific time, one specific safe space.” I’ll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to. I hope to see him there,” Harris posted on Saturday to X, formerly called Twitter.
Trump claimed in a message on Truth Social — the Trump social media site that he now uses like he formerly utilized Twitter — that the previously scheduled debate was “terminated” with Biden’s departure from the race, suggesting that Trump’s backtrack was essentially forced… which is not, well, true. Nobody forced the ABC debate plans to a close on account of Biden’s exit. Harris is still going!
