Harris says she’s ‘ready’ to debate Trump and accuses him of ‘backpedaling’ on agreement

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she is fully prepared to join Donald Trump on the debate stage in September — and accused the ex-president of reneging on a previous agreement to face off with the Democratic nominee.

Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews just after she disembarked from Air Force Two, Harris noted that she has been asked about the debate in recent days and added: “I’ll tell you I’m ready to debate Donald Trump.”

“I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate. He agreed to that previously. Now, here he is backpedaling and I’m ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so I’m ready to go,” she said.

The Trump campaign agreed that he would participate in two general election presidential debates this year after talks then-candidate Joe Biden’s campaign. The first, which took place on June 27 and was aired on CNN, was a disaster for Biden and ultimately led to the 46th president’s decision to exit the presidential race entirely on Sunday.

The second was set for September 10 and has been scheduled to air on ABC. Yet earlier in the week, Trump told reporters on a conference call that he would “absolutely” be willing to debate Harris, even as he waffled on sticking to the deal, citing a desire for a more sycophantic news organization such as Fox News to handle the event.

While the ex-president appears to want to back out of the debate deal, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller has said a debate between Trump and Harris “will happen,” though he has also said the campaign is “non-committal” when it comes to the agreement to participate in a September 10 face off on ABC.

Miller instead suggested there should be “multiple debates” between the two candidates.

“Not only will there be another debate, but there should be multiple debates,” Miller said. “We do think there should be some diversification in the outlets for who hosts a debate, but I think the public would be sold short if we only did one debate against Kamala Harris in the general election.”