Former president Donald Trump said on Friday that he agreed to debate vice-president Kamala Harris on September 4th in an event moderated by Fox News. If it happens, it would be the second presidential debate this election cycle and the first between Mr Trump and the new Democratic candidate.
According to Mr Trump’s post on his social media site, the debate is to take place at a 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 whether Ms Harris had agreed to the debate and its terms. Representatives for her campaign did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Fox News also did not respond to questions.
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Mr Trump said that the Fox News debate would have a live audience; the previous debate between US president Joe Biden and Mr Trump took place in an empty venue. Although the campaigns agreed to the format of the first debate, Mr Trump previously bemoaned that there was no crowd.
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Mr Trump also said that he is “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,” Mr Trump said on his social media site Friday, adding he hopes to tie Ms Harris to Mr Biden’s policies.
The first presidential debate between Mr Biden and Mr Trump, hosted by CNN, was among the most consequential presidential debates in history, experts say. Mr Biden gave a halting performance that contrasted strongly with Mr 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 Mr Trump in the general election. After several weeks of declining poll numbers and mounting pressure from allies, Biden announced on July 21st that he would withdraw from the race.
Ms Harris has challenged Mr 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”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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