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Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that she wants to stick to the debate the Biden and Trump campaigns agreed to before she became the likely Democratic presidential nominee and accused her opponent of ‘backpedaling.’
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Harris pointed out Trump had previously agreed to the September showdown. That debate was set to take place September 10 and be organized by ABC news.
‘You have been asking me about the debate and I’ll tell you I’m ready to debate Donald Trump ,’ Harris said. ‘I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate. He agreed to that previously. Now, here he is backpedaling, but I’m ready,’ Harris claimed.
The vice president said voters ‘deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race’ on a debate stage. ‘I’m ready. Let’s go!’ she declared. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, former President Donald Trump started pushing to have the second debate moved away from ABC News to a more conservative-friendly network.
‘Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC,’ Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday evening. Within 48 hours of Biden dropping out of the race, Harris had secured enough Democratic delegates to become the presumptive nominee.
In a call with reporters hosted by the Republican National Committee Tuesday, Trump said he would ‘absolutely’ debate Harris and even suggested there be more than one. ‘I want to debate her, and she’ll be no different because they have the same policies,’ Trump said. ‘I would be willing to do more than one debate actually.’
However, Trump said he was not ‘thrilled’ about it being moderated by ABC News. The Fox News Channel revealed on Wednesday that it had reached out to both campaigns about hosting a debate.
In a letter, Fox News President Jay Wallace pitched a debate on September 17 in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He noted it would take place just as early voting in the state gets underway. He also suggested anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum could moderate it.
The first presidential debate on June 27 hosted by CNN in Atlanta is seen as a turning point for Biden. His disastrous performance on primetime television sparked mounting concerns over whether he was fit to serve a second term. Multiple Democratic lawmakers started calling for the president to step aside amid questions over whether he could beat Trump. Less than a month later, Biden bowed out of the race.
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