Trump withdraws from ABC debate with Harris and makes pitch to Fox News
Former President Donald Trump said he would no longer participate in a planned debate between presidential candidates scheduled for September 10 on ABC, instead presenting the concept of a new standoff hosted by Fox News Channel.
The ABC debate was agreed to by both the Trump campaign and the campaign for President Joe Biden. Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in July and Vice President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic nominee. She was committed to keeping the ABC debate alive. The event would be moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis.
In comments posted to Truth Social late Friday, Trump said the September 10 debate was “finished,” noting that it was agreed to when Biden was still the nominee. He also raised the issues of legal conflicts he had with ABC; Trump has filed a defamation suit against the network over comments made by host George Stephanopoulos surrounding a decision that found the former president liable for sexual abuse. Trump recently met with ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott at an event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists.
ABC News and Fox News had no immediate comment Saturday.
“Donald Trump is scared and trying to withdraw from the debate he has already agreed to and ran straight to Fox News to save him,” the Harris campaign said in a statement on Saturday. Harris plans to make good on her promise to appear on ABC News, the statement said, and will “take the opportunity to speak to a national primetime audience.”
“We are happy to discuss further debates after both campaigns have already agreed.”
Fox News has pitched both candidates for its own debate. Jay Wallace, president and editor-in-chief of Fox News Media, recently sent a letter to both the Biden and Harris campaigns proposing a debate on Fox News Channel on September 17 – a week after the ABC News event was set to take place. Fox News proposed a debate to be held in Pennsylvania, moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
“We are open to discussion about the exact date, format and location – with or without an audience,” Wallace said. The letters to campaign officials included statistics on Fox News’ reach among independent voters in swing states. Wallace and Baier told it recently Variety they were even open to the idea of turning off each candidate’s microphone when it was not their turn to speak, a technique used by CNN that seemed to keep the event more focused and allowed less time for bickering on the camera.
Between 1988 and 2020, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates organized the presidential debate process, lined up its own moderators. However, modern politics has become so indignant that both Republicans and Democrats were eager to bypass the organization that their own parties had set in motion in 1987, after several elections in which the debates were curated by the League of Women Voters.
The events should not be taken lightly. CNN broadcast a debate in June that ultimately proved to be Biden’s undoing. The president appeared nervous and tired, even thinking the debate was taking place without a live audience and with microphones muted when a candidate’s time to speak or respond had expired. CNN’s broadcast was picked up by many of its competitors and interrupted by commercial breaks – once seen as taboo. According to Nielsen, approximately 51.27 million viewers watched the 90-minute spectacle, which was simulcast on 22 networks.
