Following a mind-numbing process, featuring multiple reversals, Donald Trump issued an unexpected announcement by way of his social media platform: The on-again, off-again ABC News debate against Vice President Kamala Harris is back on again.
“I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris,” the Republican wrote in his predictably juvenile and whiny style. “It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
In the same online missive, the former president claimed that “the Rules will be the same as the last CNN Debate” — I’ll never know why he capitalizes random words — suggesting the candidates’ microphones will be muted except when they’re answering questions, just as the Republican’s team had hoped.
So, all’s well that ends well? Not exactly. As is too often the case, when it comes to his own candidacy, Trump is an unreliable narrator. The New York Times reported:
Donald J. Trump announced for a second time that he would participate in a presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris hosted by ABC News and suggested that the question of whether microphones will be muted when a candidate isn’t speaking had been resolved. But a person briefed on the Harris campaign’s thinking said the issue of whether the microphones will be muted — something the Trump team favors and the Harris team does not — remains an open discussion.
A Harris campaign official also confirmed with NBC News that negotiations are still underway over microphone rules.
In other words, the GOP nominee told the public that the debate over the debates has been resolved, which came as something of a surprise to members of Team Harris, who knew better.
For those who might benefit from a refresher, Trump initially agreed to a debate schedule three months ago, which included a Sept. 10 event on ABC News. That, of course, was when the former president assumed his opponent would be President Joe Biden.
After the Democratic incumbent passed the torch to Harris, Trump abandoned his “anywhere, anyplace” chest-thumping and took a variety of clumsy steps to back out of his earlier debate commitments. In fact, three weeks ago, Team Trump made what appeared to be a categorical announcement: The GOP candidate would not participate in ABC News’ Sept. 10 presidential debate.
Seven days after backing out of the debate, however, Trump reversed course and re-accepted the invitation. Around the same time, the former president held a Mar-a-Lago press conference in which he also announced the dates of other upcoming debates that hadn’t been negotiated and therefore might not occur.
Two days later, on Aug. 11, Trump published a middle-of-the-night missive to his social media platform, further alerting the public to a made-up debate schedule, pointing to events that no one had agreed to.
Earlier this week, the former president took all of this in an even weirder direction, signaling his newfound reluctance to participate in the Sept. 10 debate. As members of his campaign team worked behind the scenes to keep microphones muted during the event, the Republican candidate himself said he didn’t much care either way, necessarily undermining his own team in public. He added that he believed ABC News should be “shut out” of the process.
Two days later, Trump agreed to the terms of the ABC News event — but he did so in a way that wasn’t altogether true.
All of which is to say, the first Harris-Trump debate could be two weeks away, or it might not happen at all. The GOP nominee told the public that the underlying disputes have been resolved, but he apparently made that up, and negotiations over the relevant details are still ongoing.
I’m reluctant to guess whether the event will actually happen, though one thing seems obvious: The former president was desperate to share a stage with Biden, and he appears genuinely afraid of Harris.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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