US Vice President Kamala Harris has declined former President Donald Trump’s invitation to take part in a televised debate on Fox News next month, insisting that the Republican candidate stick to a previously agreed showdown on ABC News.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump accepted Fox’s proposal that he debate Harris on September 4 in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Trump was scheduled to debate President Joe Biden on ABC News on September 10, before Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to run in his place late last month. The ABC debate has been “terminated,” Trump explained, citing Biden’s decision to step down, and his pending litigation against ABC host George Stephanopoulos, which he claimed created “a conflict of interest.”
In a statement on Saturday, Harris’ campaign accused Trump of “running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to.”
“He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to,” the statement continued. “The vice-president will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime-time national audience. We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to.”
Fox News is generally seen as more sympathetic to Trump, while ABC is perceived as more sympathetic to Harris.
Trump debated Biden in June, in a CNN-hosted faceoff in Atlanta, Georgia. Biden appeared frail during the debate and lost his train of thought on multiple occasions, and his lackluster performance set off a crisis within the Democratic Party that ultimately concluded with him suspending his campaign.
Trump maintains that senior Democrats staged a “coup” against Biden, and that former President Barack Obama was instrumental in forcing the president to step aside. “They all dumped him, and they said, ‘Either you get out nice or we’re going to go after you.’ And that’s what happened. And he had no choice. There’s no question about it,” he told the New York Post last month.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump explained that he prefers Fox News’ chosen date of September 4, as early voting begins in some states two days later.
“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,” he declared. “Nevertheless, different candidate or not, their bad policies are the same, and this will be strongly revealed at the September 4th debate.”