The day after Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s first presidential debate, it is far from clear if Trump will agree to a rematch.
Multiple TV networks are eager to host a presidential debate in October. The Harris campaign, exuding confidence after Harris baited Trump on a Philadelphia stage Tuesday night, immediately said she would agree to a second debate with the ex-president. But Trump is not committing.
“Are we going to do a rematch? I just don’t know,” he told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “We’ll think about it.”
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His comments suggest he is not altogether serious about a sequel. In a morning phone call to the co-hosts of “Fox & Friends,” he said, “when you win the debate, I don’t, I don’t know that I want to do another debate.”
Then he insulted Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the two anchors that Fox News has pitched as potential debate moderators in October.
“I wouldn’t want to have Bret and Martha,” he said, before proposing Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters or Laura Ingraham instead.
It is self-evident that Fox’s prime time stars, who exist more in the realm of entertainment than news, are never going to moderate a general election debate. So if that’s the starting point for negotiations, don’t expect another debate.
But Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said on “CNN This Morning” that Trump “has already said that he is going to do three debates.” Miller blamed Harris for dodging Trump’s talk of a September 25 debate hosted by NBC.
The Harris campaign, however, wants the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance to happen next. CBS is hosting that face-off on October 1.
That’s why Harris spokesman Brian Fallon said last night, “That was fun. Let’s do it again in October.”
NBC and other networks stand ready to host a followup debate. Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he would theoretically show up for a debate hosted by either NBC or Fox, but first “we have to determine whether or not we even want to do it.”
Trump claimed that overnight polls showed he had defeated Harris soundly in the debate, as if to suggest that a second face-off wasn’t necessary, but he was referring to highly partisan and unscientific surveys on social media. CNN’s flash poll after the debate found that registered voters who watched it broadly agreed that Harris outperformed Trump.
Regarding a potential Trump-Harris rematch, Trump’s VP nominee JD Vance said it’s ultimately up to the top of the ticket. “Obviously, he likes these debates and he’s good at them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to step back in the ring, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t. It’s his choice,” Vance told Fox News.
Trump on Wednesday also assailed ABC after the debate moderators fact-checked the former president in real-time during the prime time telecast.
“CNN was much more honorable” during its June debate, Trump told “Fox & Friends,” calling Disney-owned ABC “the most dishonest news organization, and that’s saying a lot.”
Trump repeatedly claimed the debate “was three on one” and suggested Disney’s FCC broadcast licenses should be revoked due to the moderators’ conduct.
“They are a news organization – they have to be licensed to do it – they ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” he said.
