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Vice President Kamala Harris has indicated that she will not participate in a debate on Fox News against former President Donald Trump on September 4, but she may accept his invitation to participate in additional debates if he shows up for their planned ABC News debate on September 10.
During a long press conference on Thursday afternoon, Trump suggested three debates. The former president proposed debates on Fox News and NBC, slated for September 4 and September 24, respectively, in addition to the ABC debate that he had already committed to with the Biden campaign.
Harris quickly accepted the invitation to the ABC debate on social media, even though she had already declared she would go regardless of Trump. She did not, however, address the other debates that were suggested.
Harris’s team stated on Thursday night that the vice president is not against having more debates, according to ABC News senior White House correspondent Selina Wang. The insider claims that those discussions are “contingent on Trump showing up” on September 10.
.@VP Harris will not agree to the September 4th Fox debate, campaign official tells me. Says future debates are contingent on Trump showing up to @ABC debate on Sept 10th
Willing to have convos before Sept 10 about debates after that date
So ABC will have 1st Harris/Trump debate— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) August 8, 2024
Fox News had already offered to hold a debate on September 17, just one week after the one on ABC News.
Trump said on Thursday that it would be fair for voters to see him and Harris discuss the topics before the election in November.
“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Trump told reporters.
The battle over debates comes as long-time Democratic strategist James Carville lashed out at Harris for repeatedly deferring to the far-left faction of the party, which he says will cost her dearly in November.
The former adviser to then-President Bill Clinton made his remarks just days before Harris’ on Tuesday selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz is an uber-left-wing ‘progressive’ who instantly came under assault by conservatives for his record in the state, beginning with his refusal to immediately and decisively deal with the George Floyd-inspired rioting that destroyed a significant portion of Minneapolis in the spring and summer of 2020.
During his “Politics War Room” podcast last week, Carville said the far-left wing of the party is consistently “dead-ass wrong” on all major issues, adding he wished Harris would tell all of them to “go f**k themselves.”
Since emerging as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has attempted to moderate her earlier policy positions. During her tenure as a U.S. Senator, she was ranked the “most liberal” member of the Senate by the accountability website GovTrack.
Fox News reported that Harris had previously opposed fracking, supported Defund the Police initiatives, advocated for the legalization of marijuana, and opposed stringent border security measures. Carville cautioned that Harris must avoid aligning too closely with radical progressives in this campaign cycle to avoid jeopardizing her chances in the election.
“Understand this, and I’m going to say this as clearly as I can: Anybody that has ever listened to anything that the progressive left has ever said has lived to profoundly regret it. Literally on every issue, they’re dead a– wrong,” he said, noting that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) “blew” her 2020 presidential campaign touting one far-left proposal.
“Ask Elizabeth Warren and Medicare-for-All. She blew her campaign up with one speech, all right?”
“I’d love to read a good article on who really was the strategic idiot behind her 2020 presidential campaign, because they were real f—–’ idiots, alright?” he continued, blasting those who were advising Warren.
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Carville also said that President Joe Biden has also had difficulties after adopting far-left policies such as lax enforcement of border and immigration laws.
“And why is the border an issue? Because Biden listened to these people early in his term. They weren’t just wrong; they were catastrophically wrong. Understand that,” he said. “These people are not just wrong — they’re literally walking catastrophes. And the faster people realize that, the better off they’re going to be. And they don’t have very much power.”
