Former President Donald Trump has said he will debate Vice President Kamala Harris anywhere at any time after agreeing on Friday to Fox News’ offer to host a contest between the two candidates earlier in the week. But Harris’ camp has fired back and said she won’t agree to the Fox venue, noting that Trump had already agreed to an ABC event on Sept. 10—but that was against President Joe Biden.
On Friday evening, the GOP nominee announced that he would face off against Harris in a debate scheduled for next month in Pennsylvania, hosted by Fox. Trump also revealed that he had negotiated for the debate to include a live audience, a feature absent from his first presidential debate with Biden.
“I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th,” Trump said in a late-night post to Truth Social. “The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest,” he said. “The FoxNews Debate will be held in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at a site in an area to be determined. The Moderators of the Debate will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and the Rules will be similar to the Rules of my Debate with Sleepy Joe, who has been treated horribly by his Party – BUT WITH A FULL ARENA AUDIENCE!….”
The Harris campaign, however, clapped back and accused the man who took a bullet to the ear — nearly losing his life — only to raise his fist to the shooter and yell, “Fight!” — of being too scared to debate “word salad” Harris, claiming the former president should stick to the ABC venue (before Biden backed out after lying for days, telling supporters he would never do that).
“Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out,” Harris for President communications director Michael Tyler said in comments to the Washington Examiner. “He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10,” the Harris spokesman said of Trump. “The Vice President will be there, one way or another, to take the opportunity to speak to a prime-time national audience,” Tyler continued.
Trump also has another reason for skipping the ABC venue: He’s filed legal action against the network and it’s Clinton operative host, George Stephanopoulos. Last month, a federal judge in New York rejected ABC News and George Stephanopoulos’s efforts to avoid a defamation lawsuit brought by former President Donald Trump, who, in a lawsuit, is alleging that the former Bill Clinton operative defamed him during a March interview, stating that the ex-president was “liable for rape” in a lawsuit filed by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, in a detailed ruling, rejected the motion to dismiss, stating that there were sufficient grounds for the case to proceed. “The Court has carefully considered the record, the parties’ written submissions, and applicable law. For the following reasons, the Motion is denied,” Altonaga, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, wrote.
The decision now sets the stage for Trump to escalate his battle against the network and Stephanopoulos for the next phase. The dispute revolves around a contentious segment in which Stephanopoulos, during a conversation with a lawmaker Nancy Mace (R-SC.), claimed that Trump was implicated in a rape. “A reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory,” wrote Altonaga. “Stephanopoulos’s exchange with Mace lasted about ten minutes, during which Stephanopoulos stated ten times that a jury — or juries — had found Plaintiff liable for rape.”
“New York has opted to separate the crime of rape. Stephanopoulos’s statements dealt not with the public’s usage of that term, but the jury’s consideration of it during a formal legal proceeding,” the ruling stated.
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