After a lackluster performance in Tuesday night’s ABC News presidential debate, Republican candidate Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Thursday that he will not participate in any more debates with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris before the Nov. 5 election.
Former President Trump and Harris had different proposals for a future debate. Trump pushed for NBC News to host the event on September 25, and Harris’ campaign team said immediately after Tuesday’s event that she wanted another debate in October. Fox News proposed hosting the October debate.
But Trump made it clear on Thursday that he would not participate in another debate with Harris. He declared victory at Tuesday’s meeting – Which preliminary surveys show Harris took over – and compared Harris’ decision to seek a rematch to that of a boxer who lost.
Harris said he would be better off spending his time solving the country’s myriad problems.
“When a boxer loses a fight, the first words he says are, ‘I WANT A REFIGHT.’ The polls clearly show that I won the debate with running mate Kamala Harris, the radical left Democratic candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a second debate,” Trump wrote in Social Truth post.
“KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE OVER THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEARS. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he added.
In her tweet about an hour after Trump’s, Harris reiterated her call for another debate.
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” she said. he wrote“We owe it to the voters to hold another debate.”
IN average In three national polls conducted by 538, the news and polling data division of ABC News, 57% of respondents said Harris won the debate, while 34% said Trump won. That included a Republican-sponsored poll.
Trump and Conservative Allies spent the period after the debate On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, it was argued that ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were biased and favored Harris.
Trump and several others complained that moderators fact-checked Trump’s posts, including false claims about infanticide and migrants eating pets in Ohio, but did not do the same for Harris.
There will be one more debate, however — between vice presidential candidates U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, a Republican, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, who are scheduled to meet on October 1 in New York.
Trump debated President Joe Biden in June, when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. The president’s impoverished performance in that debate prompted his withdrawal from the race — and Harris’ arrival — a few weeks later.
