Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, speculation about a potential debate with former President Donald Trump has been swirling on the airwaves and interwebs.
While Trump had tentatively agreed to debate the vice president, he initially sent mixed signals, sometimes appearing to distance himself from the idea of a verbal slugfest with Harris.
As is typical, the former president was playing coy with the topic of participating in a debate. However, it would be a missed opportunity were he to decide not to take on his opponent on the stage.
Donald Trump seems to be backing away from his earlier commitment to debate Vice President Kamala Harris, questioning the value of a meetup and saying he “probably” will debate but he “can also make a case for not doing it” — prompting her campaign to say he’s “scared.”
Trump, in an interview with Fox News Channel that aired Monday night, was pressed several times about committing to debating Harris before giving a squishier answer than he had in recent days.
The Republican former president had been willing to debate President Joe Biden when Biden was the Democratic nominee after months of suggesting that the president was not mentally up for the matchup — or the presidency. But after Biden dropped out of the race and Harris became poised to be the Democratic presidential candidate, Trump has been questioning the terms of the original debate he agreed to with Biden. He has suggested the Sept. 10 debate on ABC News should be moved to a different network, calling ABC “fake news.”
During a July 30 interview on Fox, host Laura Ingraham pressed Trump on the debate. “I want to do a debate. But I also can say this. Everybody knows who I am. And now people know who she is,” Trump replied.
The former president eventually said, “I’ll probably end up debating,” but was quick to add, “but I can also make a case for not doing it.”
Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, accused Trump of being afraid to engage in a verbal donnybrook with the vice president. “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,” he said.
Now, the debate over the debate has progressed, and we appear to be a bit closer to seeing the two candidates on the stage. Currently, Trump is demanding three showdowns with his opponent, who has only committed to one.
Trump has now indicated he would like to have three debates with Harris, all in September. Harris has so far only committed to the ABC News debate on Sept. 10.
“I think it’s very important to have debates, and we’ve agreed with Fox on a date of Sept. 4,” Trump told reporters during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. “We’ve agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement, subject to them on Sept. 10, and we’ve agreed with ABC on Sept. 25. So, we have those three dates.”
The ABC debate would actually be Sept. 10 while the NBC News debate would occur on Sept. 25.
“Well, I’m glad that he’s finally agreed to a debate on Sept. 10,” Harris responded in a rare exchange with reporters.
At this point, Trump appears committed to a debate with Harris, especially now that she has formally clinched the nomination. But with the former president, nothing can be certain. He opted not to participate in the Republican primary debates, which made a certain amount of sense because he was leading the pack by a considerable margin.
However, if Trump changes course and decides against debating Harris, he will be losing a significant opportunity to boost his odds of winning in November. In fact, if he plays his cards right, he can get the vice president to implode all on her own, as The Daily Caller’s Henry Rodgers pointed out:
A number of allies close to Trump and some officials on his campaign said a debate between Trump and Harris plays right into their hands due to their desire to get her off-script in front of large audiences. Her penchant for gaffes and awkward moments in interviews and live events will help drive voters away, they told the Caller. After all, that’s what ultimately killed Biden’s reelection bid.
“Every time Kamala Harris opens her mouth she’s off-script. Her record is the most dangerously liberal record in existence and no amount of scripting can change that,” Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign official, told the Caller.
Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes said the more Harris has to explain her record, the better it will be for Trump.
“Biden acted like a California liberal, Kamala actually is one. The more she’s forced to explain her dangerously liberal record, the more Americans will see she’s wrong on the border, wrong for fixing out of control inflation, and wrong on restoring our nation to a strong position in the world,” Hughes said.
Rodgers also brought up Harris’ many issues with unscripted interviews.
Harris has run into problems during her time as vice president during unscripted interviews. In a 2021 interview with Lester Holt, Harris repeatedly dodged questions about visiting the southern border, resulting in a viral moment so damaging that it reportedly prompted her team to change their entire media strategy.
The fact of the matter is that Harris is horrible at unscripted appearances, a weakness Trump would be remiss not to exploit. Sure, she may not be quite as gaffeworthy as President Biden, but she’s not much better. Even worse, she doesn’t have the dementia excuse to explain her inability to make coherent points. Her inability to handle unscripted exchanges is likely the reason why she has been avoiding the press.
It’s also worth noting that if Trump refuses to take the debate stage against Harris, the public might actually believe that he is scared to face her. He does not have nearly a wide enough lead to justify skipping a debate.
It is common wisdom in politics that debates do not significantly impact the outcome of elections. But 2024 is clearly an exception to this rule, as evidenced by President Biden’s abysmal debate performance against Trump in June. Indeed, if he hadn’t completely botched the debate, he would likely still be in the race. It was his inability to perform that raised more questions about his age and cognitive decline and prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out of the race.
Assuming Trump debates Harris, his goal should be to throw her off her game by forcing her to make counterpoints for which she does not already have a scripted response. Then, he can sit back and smile as the vice president gaffes her way through her remarks. It may not have the same devastating impact as it did on Biden, but it could very well shift moderates and independents into his camp.
