Former President Donald Trump said he would no longer participate in a planned debate between presidential candidates that was scheduled for September 10 on ABC, and instead floated the concept of a new showdown hosted by Fox News.
The ABC debate was scheduled to be co-hosted by the Trump campaign and President Joe Biden’s campaign. Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in July, and Vice President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic nominee. She has committed to keeping the ABC debate going. The event was scheduled to be moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis.
In comments posted to Truth Social late Friday, Trump said the Sept. 10 debate was “over,” suggesting it was agreed to when Biden was still the nominee. He also raised issues of legal disputes he has with ABC; Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against the network over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos about a ruling that found the former president liable for sexual assault. Trump recently confronted ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott at an event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists.
ABC News and Fox News did not immediately provide comment Saturday.
“Donald Trump is trying to walk out of a debate he already agreed to and is going straight to Fox News to save it,” the Harris campaign said in a statement Saturday. Harris plans to commit to appearing on ABC News and will take “the opportunity to speak to a national primetime audience,” the statement added.
“We are happy to discuss further discussions beyond those already agreed upon by the two campaigns.”
Fox News has offered the candidates its own debate. Jay Wallace, editor-in-chief of Fox News Media, recently sent a letter to the Biden and Harris campaigns proposing a debate on Fox News on Sept. 17 — a week after the ABC News event was scheduled. Fox News has proposed a debate in Pennsylvania moderated by Bret Baier and Martha McCallum.
“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 about Fox News’ reach among independent voters in swing states. Wallace and Baier recently told diverse They were even open to the idea of muting each candidate's microphone when it wasn't their turn to speak, a technique CNN used that seemed to make the event more focused and give less time for bickering in front of the cameras.
Between 1988 and 2020, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates organized the presidential debate process and lined up its own moderators. However, modern politics has seen so much ire that Republicans and Democrats have been eager to circumvent the regulation their parties began in 1987, after several elections in which debates were organized by the League of Women Voters.
The events should not be taken lightly. CNN aired a televised debate in June that ultimately proved to be Biden’s undoing. The president looked drained and tired, even though the debate was held without a live audience and with microphones muted when the candidate ran out of time to speak or respond. Many of its rivals picked up the CNN telecast, which was punctuated by commercial breaks—once considered taboo. According to Nielsen, an estimated 51.27 million viewers tuned in to watch the 90-minute spectacle, which aired on 22 networks.
