Former President Donald Trump has said he won’t do a “third debate” during the current election cycle after debating President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris one time each.
Following Tuesday’s debate, the Harris campaign expressed interest in holding another. However, Trump was initially noncommittal, and by Thursday afternoon, he had fully rejected the idea of a second debate, Fox News noted.
“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH,’” Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate.”
Trump went on to say that Harris and “Crooked Joe” Biden have “destroyed our country, with millions of criminals and mentally deranged people pouring into the USA, totally unchecked and unvetted, and with Inflation bankrupting our Middle Class.”
“Everyone knows this, and all of the other problems caused by Kamala and Joe — it was discussed in great detail during the First Debate with Joe, and the Second Debate with Comrade Harris,” Trump added.
Trump took part in a town hall on Fox News on September 4, following an invitation from the network for both the former president and Harris to debate. “She was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS,” Trump continued. “Kamala should focus on what she should have done during the last almost four year period.” He added in all caps: “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!”
Meanwhile, Harris said Thursday afternoon at a rally in Charlotte, N.C. that she believes “we owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
Trump and Harris clashed in a heated debate Tuesday night, exchanging blows on issues like abortion, immigration, Israel, and the economy. However, Trump also found himself at odds with the ABC News moderators, who frequently challenged and “fact-checked” him while allowing Harris’s questionable statements to go unchallenged.
Shortly after it concluded, Trump told Fox News Digital that he thought it was his “best debate ever, especially because it was three-on-one.” Polls taken by CNN and Fox immediately after the debate found that most respondents believed she won, but other surveys found that despite personal opinions about Harris’ performance, it did not move the needle in her direction in key battleground states.
Former Fox News star Megyn Kelly took to her top-rated SiriusXM podcast platform Tuesday evening to rip the moderators of ABC’s debate between Trump and Harris after they demonstrated blatant bias.
Moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were roundly criticized on the left and right for repeatedly pressing Trump on issues and attempting to fact-check him during the debate while essentially giving Harris a pass, though post-debate analyses found that she, too, misspoke several times and even repeated the widely debunked claim about Trump’s Charlottesville, Va., remarks in 2017.
“I’m disgusted. I’m ashamed of those moderators at ABC News. They did exactly what their bosses wanted them to do. The person who runs ABC News is a close personal friend of Kamala Harris and is responsible for Kamala Harris and her husband meeting. They did Dana Walden’s bidding tonight. It was three against one on that debate stage this evening,” Kelly said.
“It was three against one. It’s very easy to look like you know what you’re doing when both moderators are entirely on your side. Trump did the best he could under the circumstances, but it really was like three fighters in the ring pummeling one opponent, and Trump tried to take them all on. He did fine. He did the best he could. He was thrown off a few times, to the point where he was unnecessarily defensive and getting angry. And so was I. Were you?” she continued.
