Trump Agrees To Debate Harris Again After Threatening To Drop Out

Former President Donald Trump has agreed to the upcoming ABC debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10 after threatening to drop out for a second time.

The remarks came via Truth Social Media after an ABC interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), which Trump described as “biased” and “ridiculous.”

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump wrote in his post, referring to ABC as “FAKE NEWS.” Trump has a history of distaste for the network and is suing ABC and host George Stephanopoulos for defamation after a March 10 interview in which Stephanopolous said that Trump was “found liable for rape” several times on air.

Trump says he’d rather the debate be hosted on NBC, CBS or CNN, noting that CBS is unfair but “the best of the group” and that CNN treated him “very fairly last time.” Trump’s preferred host for the debate is Fox News.

When asked if he was still planning on attending the ABC debate, Trump stated in an interview, “We’re thinking about it. We’re thinking about it. They also want to change the rules. You know, the deal was we keep the same rules. Now, all of a sudden, they want to make a change in the rules.” 

The Trump campaign claims that the Harris campaign previously agreed to rules similar to those of the Trump-Biden debate, which took place on June 12 in Atlanta. Discussions between the two campaigns have been heated, specifically regarding whether there will be live microphones during the debate or if the mics will be muted when it’s not the candidate’s turn to speak, which is how the previous Trump-Biden debate was conducted. 

The Harris campaign is pushing for the use of hot mics, while the Trump campaign is advocating for muted ones.

Brian Fallon, a Harris campaign spokesperson, suggested that the Trump campaign wants to stick with the debate rules from June “because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own.” 

In a later interview, Trump said that the hot mic versus muted mic issue “doesn’t matter” to him, further stating that “I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time.”