CHAPIN, SC — CHAPIN, S.C. (AP) — Donald Trump says he is withdrawing from a planned September debate with the vice president Kamala Harris on ABC and wants them to face off on Fox News, making it increasingly unlikely the candidates will meet on stage before the November election.
In a series of Truth Social posts Friday night, the Republican candidate and former president said his deal for a Sept. 10 debate on ABC “has been terminated” because he will no longer face the Democratic president Joe Bidenwho ended his campaign last month after a disastrous performance in their first debate.
Trump now says he will appear on Fox News on Sept. 4 in Pennsylvania with rules he called “similar” to his debate with Biden, but with a capacity audience instead of a largely empty studio. Trump said that if Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, doesn’t agree to the new network and date, he will hold a “big town hall” with Fox News.
Michael Tyler, a spokesman for Harris, said Trump “is scared and is trying to back out of the debate that he has already agreed to and is running straight to Fox News to take him out.”
It was not immediately clear whether ABC would convert its Sept. 10 event into a Harris town hall in Trump’s absence. Tyler said Harris has committed to the time slot and that it appears he will “somehow seize the opportunity to speak to a national prime-time audience.”
Trump has gone back and forth about debating Harris since she entered the presidential race. He has told reporters he felt obligated to debate, but also said in a recent Fox News interview that he thought Americans “already know everything” about both candidates. Harris has pressured Trump to follow through on a promise he made when Biden was in the race. Harris noted Trump’s criticism of her, saying: recently challenged him to say it “to my face.”
In his Truth Social posts, Trump also cited his lawsuit against ABC News as a “conflict of interest” in his participation in the network’s debate show. Trump sued the network in March after host George Stephanopoulos alleged that Trump had been “liable for rape.” A Jury New York found Trump liable for sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll, but rejected her claim that she was raped.
But Trump agreedtwo months after he filed his lawsuit, to the Sept. 10 debate on ABC, and to the June 27 debate on CNN that knocked Biden out of the race. David Muir and Linsey Davis, not Stephanopoulos, will be ABC’s debate moderators.
Trump has skipped debates before, including all 2024 Republican primary debates.
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Seung Min Kim, an Associated Press editor in Washington, contributed to this report.
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Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.