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Camp Kamala says she’ll be waiting at debate that Trump never agreed to

July 30, 2024 | | Print Article

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to be at the ABC News presidential debate in September and accused former President Donald Trump of “backpedaling” on his previous promise to participate.

But Trump agreed to take part in the September 10th debate hosted by ABC News when it was clear he was debating President Joe Biden who has since suspended his campaign and endorsed Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket.

Though Trump’s agreement had not included Harris, who has not been officially named the nominee by her party yet, he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday, “The answer is yes, but I can also make a case for not doing it.”

He previously said it would be “inappropriate” to agree to debate Harris until Democrats choose their nominee because they “very well still could change their minds.”

“As Vice President Harris said last week, the American people deserve to hear from the two candidates running for the highest office in the land and she will do that at September’s ABC debate,” Harris campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement.

“If Donald Trump and his team are saying anything other than ‘we’ll see you there,’ — and it appears that they are — it’s a convenient, but expected backtrack from Team Trump. Vice President Harris will be there on September 10th — we’ll see if Trump shows,” he added.

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“I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10th debate, he agreed to that previously,” Harris said last week. “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.”

Trump campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller told MSNBC that “of course” Trump will participate in a debate but Democrats “need to pick who their ultimate nominee is going to be, that needs to be formalized before we go and lock in all the debates.”

“Hold on, we need to make sure the Democrats actually go through and lock in Kamala Harris. It was only a month ago, Chris, that many Democrats who wanted to throw Joe Biden overboard were saying, we need to go to this mini primary. We need to go with somebody else other than Kamala Harris,” he told MSNBC host Chris Jansing.

“It’s only been this past week that they’ve had an effort to rally around Kamala Harris. The exact same people that were saying Joe Biden was okay are the same people saying now we have to get behind Harris,” Miller said.

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“I want to do a debate,” Trump told Ingraham on Monday.

“But I also can say this. Everybody knows who I am. And now people know who she is,” Trump said, adding later, “The answer is yes, I’ll probably end up debating.”

Frieda Powers
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