But Now He's Afraid To Debate Kamala (Except on Fox)
Kamala has been trolling Trump mercilessly over his fear to debate her. But he’s no dummy; he knows he’d have virtually no chance to come out on top of this one. He’s tap-dancing all over the place to avoid a face-to-face confrontation— the prosecutor vs the convicted felon. Bad look for the GOP! Yesterday, Stephanie Lai reported that Señor T “dismissed pressure to debate Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he was leading in the polls and voters already knew where he and his Democratic rival stood on the issues. ‘Well, I want to. Right now I say, “Why should I do a debate?” I’m leading in the polls, and everybody knows her, everybody knows me.’”
His polling lead over Biden has been collapsing ever since Kamala entered the race. And although it’s too early to anoint Kamala the front-runner, it’s certainly going in that direction, and Trump, obsessed with polls, knows it and is petrified about it.
Also yesterday, reporting for ABC News, Tal Axelrod wrote that the DNC started running ads on Friday in places where Trump is holding rallies, like Atlanta today, so that people know he’s afraid to debate. They are also running ads in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania to correspond with MAGA events headlined by Trump or Vance in those swing states.
“The DNC,” wrote Axelrod, “has several versions of the ad, all accusing Trump of being frightened to debate Harris. One message reads, ‘The convicted felon is AFRAID to debate,’ while another ties him to the disavowed Project 2025 under the Heritage Foundation, saying the plan would ‘BAN ABORTION NATIONWIDE. No wonder he's AFRAID to debate.’”
"Donald Trump boasted he'd debate 'anytime, anywhere,' but after 34 felony convictions and one campaign meltdown after another, he’s running scared and attempting to dodge his commitment to a September debate," said DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin in a statement to ABC News.
"Trump's extreme plans for America are catching up to him, and Democrats won't let him off the hook for his dangerous Project 2025 agenda. No matter where Trump is on September 10, voters know where he stands. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris will be on the debate stage to offer America the path forward— giving voters the choice to reject Trump's MAGA extremism once and for all," her statement concluded.
The DNC's push is the latest salvo in the will-he, won't-he storyline of a debate between Harris and Trump.
Trump and President Joe Biden had originally scheduled a Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, but since then, Biden has dropped out of the race, and Harris is poised to take his place atop the Democrats' ticket officially.
Harris has maintained that she'll be on stage that day, and Trump has said he'd like to debate but has kept the door open to backing out.
"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 said earlier this week on Fox News.
"The answer is yes, but I can also make a case for not doing it," he ultimately said when asked if he'd debate.
Other comments from Trump included criticizing ABC News and opening the door to debating on other networks. Fox News later proposed that it host a Sept. 17 debate in Pennsylvania.
Harris' campaign has seized on the hesitancy, accusing Trump of being scared.
"Why won't Donald Trump give a straight answer on debating Vice President Harris? 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," campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said Monday, referencing Vance's recently resurfaced comments about childless women.
"Vice President Harris will be on the debate stage September 10th. Donald Trump can show up, or not," she added.
I can only imagine what the convicted felon is feeling as the race slips away from him but let's try...
At the NABJ he mentions that his VP pick is not important but deep down he knows he shouldn't have listened to his sons or Peter Thiel who also backed Vance. It is possible that Vance may be removed and he can bkame his indolent spawn for a bad VP.
He (snicker) "prolly" that is probably looks at the polls and sees his once "beautiful polls" showing a black woman in a statistical tie with him which only further infuriates him.
He knows that his primary authoritarian idol has abandoned him. Putin has made a deal with the United States…
TFG should not be in a debate since according to the Constitution he shouldn’t even be running. He doesn’t deserve the esteem to debate a real Presidential candidate. Screw him left, right and sideways. We’ve become a lousy science fiction movie.
Let’s go Kamala!!!
Have to side with Trump here, they’ve been preparing for Biden so why debate Kamala before they’re ready.
Is Harris a great debater? Is she a better orator, more in command of the facts and more poised on a national stage than Hillary was? This campaign is setting expectations so low for Trump, if he gets off the stage without poop in his pants, he will be declared the winner.