Will Donald Trump Debate Kamala Harris?

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Will there be a debate between Harris and Trump, and if so, when?

We don’t know yet. Both candidates have said they want to debate each other but have not mutually agreed to any specific plan to do so.

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What Trump and his campaign have said about debating Harris

In his most recent remarks on the matter, Trump posted a Truth Social message late Friday in which he proposed a September 4 debate hosted by Fox News and held in a “full arena.” Trump said that “I have agreed with Fox News to debate Kamala Harris” on that date. He also said he would not do a debate hosted by ABC News as he had originally agreed to do against Biden. That debate had been “terminated,” he said.

On July 23, the day after Harris quickly established herself as the Democratic Party’s new presumptive nominee, Trump told reporters that “I haven’t agreed to anything” regarding debating Harris. “I agreed to debate with Joe Biden.” He insisted he would “absolutely” debate Harris. “I want to debate her, and she’ll be no different because they have the same policies,” he said. “I would be willing to do more than one debate, actually,” he also said.

Trump adviser Jason Miller told Axios on Thursday, July 25, that “a [Trump-Harris] debate will happen” and also called for “multiple debates” — but that “I’m not sure it will be ABC.”

Later that day, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the campaign would not agree any specifics regarding a debate with Harris until she was officially the Democratic nominee. Cheung’s statement doubled as a multipronged attack on Democrats and Harris, and he echoed the far-fetched speculation on the right that former president Barack Obama didn’t support Harris:

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee. There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party — namely Barack Hussein Obama — that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone “better.” Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.

Obama’s endorsement was already imminent at that time and was officially announced the next morning.

During a July 29 interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump said he probably would debate Harris — unless he wouldn’t:

The answer’s yes, I’ll probably end up debating. I think actually the debate should take place before the votes start getting cast. So the answer’s yes. But I can also make a case for not doing it.

Trump called into Fox & Friends on August 7, just one day after the campaign debut of Harris’s new running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. During his appearance, he indicated that he would be debating the vice president in the future, but gave no specifics.

I don’t know how she debates. I heard she’s sort of a nasty person, but not a good debater. But we’ll see because we’ll be debating her, I guess, in the pretty near future. It’s gonna be announced fairly soon, but we’ll be debating her. I’d like to see it on Fox, by the way.

However, when the Fox anchors asked if Trump was working on details behind the scenes with Harris’s team, he said no and proceeded to talk about how all the TV networks loved him.

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What’s going on with the previously scheduled (Trump-Biden) debate on September 10?

Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, the only other presidential debate he and Trump had agreed to was planned for September 10, hosted by ABC News. Now that Biden is no longer running, Harris has committed to attending that debate, but Trump has indicated he will not. After Harris emerged as the presumptive nominee, Trump initially said that the debate should be moved to Fox News and later told reporters that he was “not thrilled” about participating in a debate hosted by ABC. His campaign later backed out completely, and on August 2, Trump said that the ABC Debate “has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant” and because “I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest.”

ABC News had still been forging ahead with its preparations for the event.

However, during a rambling press conference at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, Trump said that he has agreed to participate in several debates against Harris including the ABC debate on September 10.

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What Harris and her campaign have said about debating Trump

Kamala Harris has committed to participating in the previously scheduled September 10 debate — and she and her campaign have repeatedly called out Trump.

Speaking with reporters on July 25, Harris said she was “ready” to debate Trump, that “voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race,” and she said that Trump “appears to be backpedaling”:

I’ll tell you, I’m ready to debate Donald Trump. I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10th debate, he agreed to that previously. Now it appears he’s backpedaling. But I’m ready. And I think that the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so, I’m ready. Let’s go.

After the Trump campaign backed out of any debate planning that night, Harris tweeted, “What happened to ‘any time, any place’?”

The next day, the Harris campaign sent out a press release titled “Many People Are Saying: Donald Trump Is Scared to Debate Kamala Harris.”

At a rally in Georgia on Tuesday, July 30, Harris publicly challenged Trump to the debate:

So he won’t debate me, but he and his running mate have a lot to say about me. … Well Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider. Meet me on the debate stage … because as the saying goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.

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Have any other debates been proposed?

Fox News wants to host one on Tuesday, September 17, hosted by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and has already sent invitations to the Trump and Harris campaigns. It has proposed the debate be held in Pennsylvania, but said in the invitation letter that the date, location, and format were all negotiable. Fox News proposed the idea after Trump said he would prefer Fox News host their September 10 debate instead of ABC. Trump later proposed doing a Fox News debate in Pennsylvania on September 4.

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Will there be multiple debates between Trump and Harris?

That’s not yet clear.

Trump adviser Jason Miller has told Axios that “there should be multiple debates” and that the Trump team thinks “there should be some diversification in the outlets for who hosts a debate.” That includes a Spanish-language network, he said.

“I think the public would be sold short if we only did one debate against Kamala Harris in the general election,” Miller said.