Former President Donald J. Trump said late Friday that he agreed to debate Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 4 in an event moderated by Fox News. If it happens, that would be the second presidential debate this election cycle and the first between Mr. Trump and the new Democratic candidate.
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According to Mr. Trump’s post on his social media site, Truth Social, the debate is to take place at a to-be-determined location in Pennsylvania, one of the most consequential battleground states. Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum would moderate.
It was unclear early Saturday whether Ms. Harris had agreed to the debate and its terms. Representatives of her campaign did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Fox News also 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.’”
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