Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 08, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have agreed to a debate on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC News, both presidential nominees said Thursday.
Trump at a news conference said that he has also signed up for two more debates: one to be hosted by Fox News on Sept. 4, the other to be hosted by NBC News on Sept. 25.
Harris, the Democratic nominee, later told reporters, “I am happy to have that conversation about an additional debate, or after Sept. 10 [on ABC News], for sure.”
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks with members of the media before boarding Air Force Two at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan, U.S., August 7, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
“I have always been on record, I am looking forward to debating Donald Trump and we have a date of Sept. 10,” Harris told NBC News earlier at a campaign event with the United Auto Workers union in Wayne, Michigan.
Republican nominee Trump, at the news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, said, “I think it’s very important to have debates.”
Trump said CBS News will host a vice presidential debate between his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Fox previously agreed to host a Trump-Harris debate on Sept. 4.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 08, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
NBC has pitched both campaigns multiple potential dates for a presidential debate, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Trump’s campaign agreed to Sept. 25 but the Harris campaign has yet to agree to that date, the person said.
Trump’s announcement of three potential debates with Harris was a reversal of his vow last week that he would not participate in a debate on ABC. Trump at the time claimed his pending defamation lawsuit against the network created a “conflict of interest.”
Harris since then had taunted Trump for refusing to commit to the ABC debate, whose Sept. 10 date was set originally for Trump to debate President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the election last month.
Trump’s freewheeling news conference Thursday, which lasted about an hour, came amid a swell of momentum for the Harris-Walz ticket.
Trump’s campaign in recent days has pressured Harris and Walz to take questions from the media — and pressured media outlets to demand the Democrats do so — as it accused the vice president of dodging reporters.
“She hasn’t done an interview, she can’t do an interview, she’s barely competent,” Trump said Thursday.
Harris has largely sidestepped reporters since Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed her as his replacement last month.
Harris and Walz on Tuesday embarked on a kickoff campaign swing through battleground states, without holding news conferences.
Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said Thursday that Trump is “throwing tantrums” because the former president is not getting the attention he “craves.”
“Trump has no vision, he has no solutions, and he is running a campaign of revenge and retribution to enact his Project 2025 agenda and make people’s lives worse,” Moussa said.
