Donald Trump spent the better part of a year begging for a debate against President Joe Biden. The former Republican president worked from the assumption that he’d fare well against the Democratic incumbent — and as it turned out, Biden’s stumbles during his showdown with Trump were so significant that they helped push him from the 2024 race.
In theory, there’s no need to dramatically alter the schedule, since the GOP nominee can simply debate Vice President Kamala Harris instead of Biden. In practice, it’s proving to be a bit more complicated than that.
A few hours after the incumbent president ended his re-election bid, Trump published an item to his social media platform, noting that the next debate is currently scheduled to air on ABC News in September. He apparently has a problem with that: The Republican called the network “fake”; he deliberately misspelled George Stephanopoulos’ name in a juvenile way; and he concluded, “I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC.”
Soon after, Politico reported, “One GOP source tells me he doubts Trump will debate Vice President Kamala Harris — he’ll likely call her an illegitimate candidate.”
Trump doubled down on his original message shortly after midnight this morning, again attacking the network. “ABC Fake News is such a joke, among the absolute WORST in the business,” the former president wrote adding that ABC “is not worthy of holding a Debate.”
It’s a far cry from the “ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE” message Trump pushed while pleading for a debate with Biden.
This afternoon, however, the Republican nominee participated in a press call and said he’s “absolutely” prepared to debate Harris — more than once — though he’s “not thrilled” about ABC hosting the event.
As part of the same comments, Trump told reporters, “Well, I haven’t agreed to anything. I agreed to debate with Joe Biden. But I want to debate her, and she’ll be no different.” So, which is it? Will Trump face off against Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, or not? One possibility is the former president is scared of the Californian and looking for excuses to bow out. Another possibility is that Trump is engaging in a mind-numbing “work the refs” exercise, whining incessantly about ABC, in part in the hopes that the network will tilt the debate in his favor and in part to preemptively have an excuse in case Harris fares well in an upcoming standoff. Either way, the Republican appears a lot less eager to share a stage with the incumbent vice president than he did with Biden.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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