Donald Trump Rejects Idea of Second Debate Against Kamala Harris

Former President Donald Trump has rejected the idea of a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, days after announcing himself as the victor in their initial head-to-head when the two met for the first time and he repeatedly lost his footing and his cool while sparring with his opponent in the upcoming election. 

Trump, who is neck-and-neck with Harris in national polling two months after she entered the 2024 presidential race to replace President Joe Biden at the top of the Democrats’ ticket, announced the rejection of a second debate Thursday on his Truth Social platform.

“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’ Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate,” he wrote, in part.

The former president went on in his post about his beliefs that Biden and Harris negatively impacted the economy and immigration in the country. He also claimed that Harris was “a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS.” But the candidates never agreed upon a debate on Fox News, although the network proposed multiple dates for one. NBC News, like several news networks, proposed to host a debate between the presidential candidates; CBS News is sponsoring a vice presidential debate on Oct. 1.

“KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” Trump wrote in conclusion. 

Harris said that she would like to have a second debate against Trump, writing on X (formerly Twitter), “Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate. We owe it to the voters to have another debate.” On Fox & Friends on Wednesday, Trump had already suggested that he may not be up for an additional debate; at the suggestion by the hosts of a Fox News-hosted meetup with Harris, he proposed anchors that are friendly to him as potential moderators, including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or Jesse Watters.

Following Tuesday’s debate, 63 percent to 37 percent indicated they believed Harris had the better performance, according to a CNN poll from SSRS. The vice president managed to goad Trump into several angry rants about nonsensical topics and fake news that he presented as verified facts. Several times, the moderators had to fact-check his statements live on-air.