Former President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wants to debate Vice President Kamala Harris and “would be willing to do more than one debate.”
Trump made the comments on a campaign conference call focusing on Harris’ record on immigration now that she has become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race.
“Oh, yes, absolutely, I’d want to,” Trump said in response to a question about whether he’d debate Harris. “I think it’s important. I’m not thrilled about ABC because they’re truly fake news. I watched last night. They’re actually trying to make a hero out of Joe Biden when he was the worst president in history, and they were doing things like, ‘Kamala, what a wonderful thing it is that she is running.’”
During the call, which included a past and current president of the union representing U.S. Border Patrol workers, Trump invoked a familiar litany of complaints — some true, some not — about the surge in crossings at the nation’s southern border, the Biden administration’s response and Harris’ role in shaping that response.
Trump also fielded questions about a variety of campaign subjects, starting with the debate.
The Trump campaign had originally agreed to a pair of debates with Biden when the president was still running. Biden’s weak performance at the first debate in June caused fellow Democrats to question his viability as a candidate — and, eventually, push him to step aside. A second debate is currently scheduled to take place on Sept. 10, hosted by ABC News.
Trump reiterated complaints that ABC is “fake news” on his call.
“So, you know, I’m not thrilled with ABC,” he said a little later before mentioning his willingness to debate again.
Following Biden’s announcement on Sunday, Trump also wrote on Truth Social that “Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC.”
But campaign officials said Trump still intended to debate, albeit with the same caveats about ABC.
