Trump agrees to Fox News debate with Kamala Harris on Sept 4

WASHINGTON – US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has agreed to a Fox News debate with Democratic US vice-president Kamala Harris on Sept 4, he said in a post on social media platform Truth Social on Aug 2.

“Rules will be similar to the rules of my debate with Sleepy Joe, who has been treated horribly by his party, but with a full arena audience,” Trump said, referring to President Joe Biden, who has since dropped his re-election bid.

The post was removed for a few minutes before being reposted, with Trump deleting his proposal for a “major” town hall gathering on the same date if Ms Harris was “unwilling or unable to debate”.

According to Trump’s post, the debate is to take place at a to-be-determined location in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that could help decide the election. Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum would moderate.

It was unclear on the early morning of Aug 3 whether Ms Harris had agreed to the debate and its terms. Representatives of her campaign did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Fox News also did not respond to questions.

Trump said that the debate on Fox News would have a live audience; the previous debate between President Joe Biden and Trump took place in an empty venue. Although the campaigns agreed to the format of the first debate, Trump previously bemoaned that there was no crowd.

Trump also said that he was “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, he has characterised her ascendancy as a “coup” within the Democratic Party.

The former president complained about the shake-up among his opponents in his debate announcement.

“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,” Trump said on his social media site on Aug 2, 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 will have clinched the nomination from her party. She is expected to formally secure the nomination once the Democrats’ virtual roll call vote concludes on Aug 5.

The first presidential debate between Mr Biden and Trump, hosted by CNN, was among the most consequential presidential debates in history, according to experts. Mr Biden gave a halting performance that contrasted strongly with Trump, who repeatedly advanced falsehoods.

Mr Biden’s garbled responses supercharged concerns among his Democratic colleagues about his age and health, as well as his ability to beat Trump in the general election.

After several weeks of declining poll numbers and mounting pressure from allies, Mr Biden announced on July 21 that he would withdraw from the race.

Ms Harris has challenged Trump to debate her and criticised his previous reluctance to commit to a date despite his previous comments to debate Mr Biden “any time, any place”.

Trump formerly agreed to debate Mr Biden for a second debate hosted by ABC on Sept 10. But Trump did not indicate he would stick to the plan after the President dropped out, though Ms Harris said she would be willing to take Mr Biden’s place.

“Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage,” Ms Harris said at her rally in Atlanta on July 30. “Because, as the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face’.” REUTERS, NYTIMES