Politics

Trump Reveals His Decision On Fox News Debate

Published

2 months ago

October 11, 2024

Viewers hoping that former President Donald Trump would engage in one final war of words with Vice President Kamala Harris were left disappointed by his decision Thursday to forgo a final debate on Fox News slated for late October.

With the race for the White House a virtual tie and the calendar winnowing, President Trump said he sees no reason for a final showdown. “There is nothing to debate!” he wrote in an all-caps social media post on Truth Social. The decision is a dismissal of Fox’s position that a second debate “would present an opportunity for each candidate to make their closing arguments,” according to Reuters.

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Voting is already underway for most Americans who CBS reports have historic access to mail-in and early voting, both part of reforms made to hold the 2020 presidential election amid a global pandemic. Ten states began sending mail-in and absentee ballots out as early as 45 days before the November 5th election, a deadline that is also required nationally for all military ballots. In 2000, just 40% of voters had some form of access to early voting; today, 97% do. President Trump has said it’s now far too late in the season to spend time preparing for and participating in a two-hour debate.

Closing the door on a final debate will leave voters with three momentous meetings with which to base their decision-making: President Trump’s single September 27th debate with President Joe Biden; his September 10th debate against Vice President Harris; and last week’s lone vice presidential debate between Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. After a disastrous performance against Trump, President Biden and aides seriously began to eye his exit from the contest, a decision which came in late July after Trump narrowly survived an attempted assassination.

In the election’s current iteration, Vice President Harris held her own in a hotly contested showdown that did little to change voters’ perceptions or opinions. In several post-debate snap forums featuring undecided voters, a majority felt they learned little to nothing about her positions and instead were left reacting to her frequent pummeling of President Trump. Then last week’s Vance-Walz debate invited sharp criticism about the Democratic running mate’s fitness for the national stage. At times the Minnesota governor stumbled over his words and badly mangled an answer on mass shootings, saying he has become “friends with school shooters.”

Since Biden’s exit, Vice President Harris has been effectively coronated by the Democratic Party as leaders like former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rallied behind her before the party’s August convention. As journalist Mark Halperin put it this week, Democrats are running an unprecedented, high-stakes experiment to see whether a presidential campaign can be launched and won within two months. Tightening polls and a steady decline in Harris’s numbers have advisors bullish on Trump’s chances of victory like never before.