Donald Trump Refuses to Debate Kamala Harris Again, Even on His Beloved Fox News

A month after definitively losing his first and only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump is refusing to face Harris again—even from the safe and friendly shallows of Fox News, which had hoped to host a follow-up on October 24 or 27.

Trump’s campaign seems to have calculated that it makes more sense for him to lob insults at Harris online, where she can’t bait the former president or smirk virally in his direction. “I WON THE LAST TWO DEBATES,” Trump declared on Truth Social Wednesday night, in all-caps defiance of September’s post-debate polls. Nearly two in three registered voters thought Harris won the last debate, according to CNN, while 31% of respondents in an ABC/Ipsos poll said that they had a worse impression of Trump after the September debate.

Trump has shied from the prospect of a rematch for weeks, so his latest refusal doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The campaigns had invites from both Fox and CNN, the latter of which set a Thursday deadline for the candidates to accept or decline. CNN confirmed on Thursday that Trump had turned down the debate, according to The New York Times, and a campaign advisor told NBC they had no plans to reconsider. Meanwhile, Fox News announced that it had made a final overture to both campaigns on Wednesday, with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum pitched as moderators.

While Fox has not confirmed that its debate is off, and Trump didn’t specifically name the network in his Wednesday post, the former president told “Fox and Friends” in early September that he “wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret” moderate a Fox debate, lobbying instead for a more MAGA-friendly host. His post also made clear he has no desire to debate again, on any network. “THE FIRST THING A PRIZEFIGHTER DOES WHEN HE LOSES A FIGHT IS SAY THAT HE ‘DEMANDS A REMATCH,’” Trump said. “IT IS VERY LATE IN THE PROCESS, VOTING HAS ALREADY BEGUN – THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH!”

The former president also falsely claimed he was leading in the polls and “in all swing states,” with “the lead getting bigger by the day.” That declaration appeared to draw from an internal campaign memo that Trump made public Thursday morning, which found his campaign was up by one to five points in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Those polls only surveyed 800 people in each state, however, and the margin of error—3.5%—was considerably greater than Trump’s predicted lead in every state but Georgia, where his campaign has him up by 5%. Weighted averages of reputable polls currently have Harris leading nationally and in several swing states.

In the absence of another televised debate, Harris will appear at a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania on October 23, her campaign chair said. Trump will almost definitely be watching—and retorting from behind the safety of his screen, as he’s been doing in recent days. On Wednesday and Thursday, the former president sent a flurry of tweets baselessly accusing 60 Minutes of “illegal” fraud and collusion with the Democratic party over Harris’s October 7 interview with the program. He insisted producers doctored Harris’s responses in coordination with the Democratic party, though there’s no evidence this happened, and demanded that the federal government “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” (It does not license networks.)

Trump pulled out of his own 60 Minutes interview, per CBS, over concerns the show would fact-check his comments.

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