Ever since Joe Biden dropped out of the race, both creepy Donald Trump and weird JD Vance had been coy about whether they would take part in debates with their Democratic counterparts. Creepy Trump made new demands.
Donald Trump backs out of a previously scheduled presidential debate on ABC after Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. Now he says he’ll agree to debate Harris if it’s hosted by Fox News in a “full arena audience.” pic.twitter.com/6ASMDhkHh0
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 3, 2024
Kamala Harris then started mocking creepy Trump, saying that he is scared and looking for a ‘safe space’.
“Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out,” the Harris campaign said in a statement on Saturday.
Donald Trump backs out of a previously scheduled presidential debate on ABC after Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. Now he says he’ll agree to debate Harris if it’s hosted by Fox News in a “full arena audience.” pic.twitter.com/6ASMDhkHh0
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 3, 2024
Tim Walz also kept challenging weird Vance to debate.
Then today, after blustering about how unfair ABC News was and how unfair it was that the Democrats had switched their presidential nominee, and demanding that the next debate be moderated by Fox News and not ABC, and had to be held in an arena full of people, creepy Trump completely caved and agreed to the original debate terms.
Trump’s decision to go on ABC sets up a high-stakes moment in an election where Biden’s catastrophic performance in the last debate set in motion his withdrawal.
Just five days earlier, he had declared he would not debate on ABC and said his agreement with the network had been “terminated.” He wrote on his social media site that if Harris wouldn’t appear on Fox News on Sept. 4 instead, “I won’t see her at all.”
On Thursday, he announced a change of heart — and tried to pressure Harris to agree to two more September debates on Fox and on NBC.
Asked what he will do if a Harris only agrees to the ABC debate, he said: “I don’t know how that’s gonna work out. We’d like to do three debates. We think we should do three debates.”
A few hours after the news conference, Harris told reporters she was “glad he has finally committed” to debate her on ABC on Sept. 10, the date that had originally been set for a Biden faceoff against Trump and which her campaign has long stuck to.
“I’m looking forward to it and hope he shows up,” she said.
The people who are most eager to debate are those who think they will do well and those who are lagging in the race and hope that a good performance will improve their fortunes. From what I can see, Harris and Walz belong in the former category and the fact that he first demanded changes and then added contingencies and then capitulated without getting anything, suggests that creepy Trump has realized that he is falling behind and needs to do something to stop her momentum.
Both GOP nominees must be nervous because Harris and Walz have demonstrated that they are formidable speakers who are perfectly willing to engage in rough-and-tumble verbal sparring.
Cannot wait. Is there a way to watch this live in the uk i wonder?
I believe participants in such debates typically practice with a stand-in for their opponent. But I doubt whether Trump does this -- and who on earth can Harris get to approximate the creepy Trump vibe?
A comedian worth his salt.
@2 -- i understand Alec Baldwin’s recent legal troubles have gone away…
@sonofrojblake — There are always ways. It is the internet after all. First you need to find out some other information, but assuming that it’s going to be broadcast on the regular ABC network, there are sites devoted to live-streaming free over-the-air TV channels, and ABC is that.
Other ways likewise exist, but I don’t know what they will be. IIRC ABC and SkyNews have some sort of reciprocal agreement, so there might even be an official stream through the SkyNews website. (Or if I’m wrong about the ABC/SN connection that I think I remember and another network has the UK rights to ABC content, it could be on that site.)
Wonkette.com always streams these things live, but some of them are region-limited. When this is true, it’s because of agreements between networks where there’s only one site in the UK authorized to stream ABC content within UK borders. When such agreements exist, not even ABC can violate the agreement (that would after all defeat the purpose of someone else paying for the right to distribute ABC content in a particular country). But such agreements don’t always exist, certainly not for every country. And other agreements can exist where two networks trade content, giving the other the right to distribute it but not making that right exclusive.
DRM is a clusterF* is what I’m saying. But there are ways. Check Wonkette.com if nothing else.
@ 1 sonofrojblake
Can someone convey this information to sonof since he allegedly blocks my comments to improve his user experience?. X-D
(That’s a UK source btw.)
“I’m looking forward to it and hope he shows up,” she said. What a brilliant, beautiful, brutal put-down.
VPN ftw.
Thanks, CD.