OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to a single debate against whomever former President Donald Trump chooses to be his running mate.
The agreement came after an announcement by Fox News anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier on Friday that their network had made the offer to host a VP debate.
“This is the Wild West of debate proposals. We put out a debate proposal for a presidential debate. It was accepted by former President Trump. Not accepted yet by the Biden camp in early October and now there’s a pitch specifically for the vice presidential debate that went out about half an hour ago to both campaigns, suggesting that in addition, the Fox News media has reached out to Virginia State University (VSU) as a possible location since it was selected by the Commission of Presidential Debates to be the first a historically black college or university to host a presidential debate,” Baier reported.
“So we are making this formal request for a Vice President of debate either July 23rd, August 13th, or after the RNC and DNC conventions, and just in the past few minutes as that has gone out I have received this. From former President Trump and the campaign,” he added before quoting a Trump Truth Social post regarding a veep debate.
“On behalf of the future vice president of the United States, who I have not yet chosen, we hereby accept to the FOX vice presidential debate. Hopefully, at Virginia State University, the first historically black college or university to host a debate. Date to be determined. I urge Vice President Kamala Harris to agree to this, and make America Great Again,” he wrote.
“That’s from a former president his campaign. So we will see about the Biden-harris campaign response and where we go from here. Obviously, we have the CNN and ABC debate that has been agreed to already and we’ll see what else happens. This is a strange dynamic in getting these things locked down but we are doing it in short order,” Baier continued.
On Saturday, a Biden campaign official said she agreed to do the debate. The Biden campaign informed CBS News that it had accepted the network’s invitation to participate in a vice presidential debate in the studio on either of the two dates proposed by the outlet, July 23 or August 13, stated a campaign official.
“We look forward to the Trump campaign accepting one of these dates so that the full debate calendar for this campaign can be set,” the official added.
The proposed date of July 23 would occur less than a week after the conclusion of the Republican convention in Milwaukee, giving Trump’s running mate limited time to prepare for a debate with Harris, CNN reported, although it’s likely that Trump’s pick will be informed well before the convention, giving that person plenty of time to prepare.
Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday that there was a “pretty good chance” he would announce his vice presidential pick at the convention in Milwaukee.
“I don’t say anything’s a 100 pecent, but you’re getting pretty close. I’ll be doing it in Milwaukee,” he told TMJ4 news.
On Friday, MacCallum and Baier discussed the “surreal” nature of scheduling a debate without knowing who one of the participants will be.
“Obviously, there’s always a vice presidential debate, and you can’t imagine they wouldn’t want the sitting vice president of the United States to go head to head and defend the president’s administration and work they have done against whoever former President Trump picks, right?” MacCallum said.
“That’s a little surreal, too, isn’t it? We are dealing with a stand-in. It’s basically we don’t know who this person will be yet but we accept on behalf of that vice presidential nominee,” Baier responded.
