Topline
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign signaled Thursday she is willing to debate former President Donald Trump twice, after Trump, who previously pulled out of a planned debate with Harris, offered to face off three times—raising the possibility of multiple debates as the presidential race tightens.
A spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign conditionally agreed to two presidential debates and one … [+]
Key Facts
Michael Tyler, communications director for Harris-Walz 2024, said in a statement shared with reporters Thursday “the debate about debates is over” and that Harris is willing to participate in two presidential debates.
The statement said as long as Trump “actually shows up on September 10 to debate” Harris in a planned event on ABC, Harris’ running mate Tim Walz will debate Trump’s pick JD Vance on Oct. 1, and Harris will commit to another debate with Trump on an unspecified date in October.
The Harris team’s statement comes one week after Trump reversed course on debates and committed to attending the Sept. 10 ABC debate he had previously pulled out of—and proposed he and Harris have three total debates.
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When Are The Planned Debates?
As of Thursday, Harris and Trump have both committed to attending the ABC debate on Sept. 10, and Walz and Vance both committed to a debate on CBS on Oct. 1. There are no other debates publicly agreed to by both campaigns.
Tangent
Walz and Vance formally accepted CBS’ debate invitations Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, and Vance invited Walz to a second debate on Sept. 18 on CNN. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Vance said “the American people deserve as many debates as possible,” but Tyler’s statement later on Thursday seemingly rejected the offer.
Chief Critic
Vance already hit back at the Harris campaign for rejecting his request for a second debate, saying on X: “If you want to be the VP of the United States, you should make your pitch directly to the American people. A debate is an opportunity to take your case to voters without a teleprompter or a script. Can’t imagine why anyone would say no.” Trump had not commented on the Harris team statement as of 3 p.m. EDT and Forbes reached out to his campaign for comment.
What We Don’t Know
What network would host the October debate Tyler’s statement referred to. The statement said as long as Trump shows up in September, “the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October,” but did not offer any details. Forbes has reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment.
Key Background
The candidates aren’t using the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to organize debates this year, setting off a dramatic scrum between the campaigns and media outlets to set up pre-election faceoffs. Trump had initially been noncommittal on whether he would debate Harris at all after she took over leading the Democratic ticket from President Joe Biden—who pledged to debate Trump twice, before his first debate appearance in June led to a barrage of calls for him to end his reelection bid. Trump’s team initially said they wouldn’t commit to a debate with Harris until she was the official nominee, and then Trump called on the second debate to be on Fox News instead of ABC and said he would no longer participate in it on ABC as he’d agreed to do it when he would be debating Biden, not Harris. Last week, however, Trump changed his tune in a press conference and challenged Harris to three debates—including the originally planned ABC debate, along with one on NBC and one on Fox News.
Surprising Fact
Since Harris became the official Democratic nominee, polls have shown her gaining back the ground Democrats lost with Biden and consistently leading Trump. An Emerson College poll released Thursday showed her up four points on Trump, and was the fourth poll released this week that found she would beat Trump were the election held today.
Further Reading
Israel and Hamas. Previously, she has covered a range of topics from Donald Trump’s legal battles to Taylor Swift’s path to becoming a billionaire. She joined Forbes in April 2022 and is based in Colorado. Prior to joining Forbes, Bohannon covered local news and spent time at the Fort Collins Coloradoan and the Arizona Republic. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Creighton University and has an MA in investigative journalism from Arizona State. Follow Bohannon for continued coverage of pop culture, politics and updates on the war in Gaza.
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