Now facing Harris, Trump backs off from his commitment to Sept 10 debate

NEW YORK – Advisers to former US president Donald Trump said they would not commit to another debate, one they had already agreed to participate in, now that the Democrats have changed candidates from US President Joe Biden to US Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Mr Biden and Trump

agreed to two election debates

, the first of which took place on June 27. Mr Biden’s performance

was so calamitous

that it began a four-week drumbeat toward his departure from the race.

The two men agreed months ago to a second debate, to be held on Sept 10, and hosted by ABC News. Mr Trump complained at the time that they should have even more.

But Mr Biden announced on July 21 that he was

dropping out of the race

, and within 48 hours, the entire Democratic Party had coalesced around Ms Harris as the likely nominee to compete against Trump, who’s the Republican nominee for the third consecutive presidential election.

The only major Democrat yet to endorse Ms Harris – former US president Barack Obama –

is expected to do so imminently

.

Ms Harris’ team is in the early stages of vetting potential running mates.

Nonetheless, in a statement issued late on July 25, Trump’s communications director, Mr Steven Cheung, maintained that there was “continued political chaos surrounding” Mr Biden and the Democrats, so “general election debate details cannot be finalised until Democrats formally decide on their nominee”.

The statement said that many in the Democratic Party – including Mr Obama – think that Ms Harris cannot beat Trump, and that “they are still holding out for someone ‘better’”.

It added: “Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.” It came hours after Ms Harris recommitted to the ABC News debate.

“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after a trip to Texas and Indiana, saying that Trump was “back-pedalling” to get out of the debate.

After the Trump campaign issued its statement, Ms Harris posted on the social media website X: “What happened to ‘any time, any place’?” referring to Trump’s previous insistence that he would debate Mr Biden whenever and wherever.

Trump first hinted on July 21 that he was rethinking participating in the next debate after Mr Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

Trump suggested that the ABC News debate

should be moved to Fox News

, whose prime-time hosts have been very friendly to him.

Fox News later proposed a debate for Sept 17.

“Well, I haven’t agreed to anything,” Trump told reporters on a call this week hosted by the Republican National Committee. “I agreed to debate with Joe Biden. But I want to debate her, and she’ll be no different because they have the same policies.”

Another Trump adviser, Mr Jason Miller, told Axios that there should be “multiple debates”, but also pushed back on the notion that the ABC News debate was set in stone.

A New York Times/Siena College survey published on July 25 showed Democrats coalescing around Ms Harris, helping to narrow what had been a larger gap between Trump and Mr Biden. The survey showed Trump and Ms Harris in a virtual tie, with him leading among likely voters by 1 percentage point, 48 per cent to 47 per cent. NYTIMES