On Wednesday morning, former President Donald Trump indicated that he might opt out of a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a telephone interview on Fox & Friends, Trump criticized ABC News, alleging that the moderators of the first debate, David Muir and Linsey Davis, had unfairly targeted him while allowing Harris to evade scrutiny regarding her arguments. Host Steve Doocy inquired whether Trump would agree to Fox’s proposal to host a second debate with Harris on Fox News in October.
“Mr. President, I know when we started the interview, you said that you felt that you won the debate last night. Your best,” Doocy said.” I think before the debate happened last night, the Kamala Harris people said that they would actually like to do another debate in October. And I know that last night Fox News offered — sent letters to your campaign and her campaign offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha and Bret. One is October 9th in Arizona.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret,’ Trump replied. “I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I’d love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura. You know, somebody else. Let’s give let’s give other people a shot.”
Trump then explained why, adding, “But I didn’t think Martha and Bret were so good last night. Yes, he was. Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said, Jesse. Really got it. Jesse said to Trump once that debate that was we won that debate by a lot. And I wouldn’t want Martha involved.”
Trump subsequently indicated that he might opt out of participating in a second debate.
“But look, here’s a story. When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate or they ask for a fight. So in this case, a debate. So we had two people. They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate, because that’s what when a fighter loses, he says, I want a rematch. I want a rematch. They always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch. I won the debate according to C-SPAN, by a lot, according to every single I think we had 14 polls that we said to you everyone had been winning the debate,” Trump declared.
Doocy followed up, saying, “So you don’t know if you want to do another debate. It sounds like you’re in. No.”
Trump stated that he is not presently inclined to participate in a second debate.
“Well, I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible, terrible network. I think they were terrible. They should be embarrassed. I mean, they kept correcting me and I said what I said was largely right or I hope it was right. But what they said was absolutely wrong. The other you know what what she said. And they refused to,” Trump said.
“Correct. I even complained a couple of times. Why aren’t you correcting them? Look, they should have corrected 6 or 7 times. She told an outright lie. Another one is Project 2025. They know it has nothing to do with me. She mentioned it all night long and they refused to correct it. And everybody, you know, I haven’t I have nothing to do with Project 2020. I would just say one thing, but I am not inclined to do it because I won the debate by a lot. But I think we let it settle in and let’s see what happens,” Trump added.
Brian Kilmeade stepped in to defend his colleagues, saying: “I will say this. I think that Bret and Martha would do a phenomenal job, and they wouldn’t be bringing up Obamacare when and not talk about inflation,” he said. “And I think you would find them extremely fair. And I know you’ve dealt with both of them before.”
Watch:
President Trump interview FOX & Friends pic.twitter.com/02A43RAijd
— Karli Bonne’ (@KarluskaP) September 11, 2024