Update: At a rally in North Carolina on Saturday, Trump backed away from another debate, saying “The problem with another debate is that it’s just too late. Voting has already started.”
Vice President Kamala Harris accepted an invitation from CNN to debate Donald Trump for a second time on October 23. Now the ball is in the former president’s court.
After getting trounced by Harris in their first debate earlier this month, Trump initially ruled out a second face-off. “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he posted on Truth Social two days after the candidates faced off on ABC. But by that Friday, he seemed more open to the idea. “Maybe if I got in the right mood, I don’t know,” he told reporters during a news conference in California.
Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement that “Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate.”
Trump’s performance in the last debate was largely characterized by a series of malicious and incoherent lies. As my colleague David Corn wrote:
He tossed out—often in a hard-to-follow jumble of words that probably could only be deciphered by his true devotees—one debunked lie after another. Undocumented immigrants are stealing and eating people’s pets in Ohio. (“I see people on television talking about it,” he said as way of confirmation.) And undocumented migrants are violently taking over apartment complexes in Colorado. Doctors in Democratic states are executing babies after they are born. Crime is down throughout the world but increasing in the United States. Everyone—Democrats, Republicans, and all legal scholars—wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Harris and the Democrats are scheming to confiscate all guns. Joe Biden has pocketed money from Ukraine and China. Harris is a “Marxist” and hates Jews, Arabs, and Israel. He has had no connection to Project 2025. Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the violence on January 6. Top professors at the Wharton School have praised his tariffs plan (which many economists have said will lead to inflation and unemployment). The economy when he was president was the best ever.
Trump, apparently, saw this as a win. “In the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’ Well, it’s no different with a Debate. She was beaten badly last night. Every Poll has us WINNING,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Whether or not Harris and Trump face each other again, their running mates Tim Walz and JD Vance will take part in a debate on October 1, hosted by CBS News.