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
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday he has agreed to three debates in September against his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, on three different news networks.
“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Trump said at the start of a solo news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Palm Beach, Florida.
The former president said he agreed to a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News. He also said his campaign has a “fairly full agreement” with NBC News and an agreement with ABC News for two more debates in September.
ABC has previously agreed to host a presidential debate with Trump and Harris on Sept. 10. It was not immediately clear if NBC has agreed to host on Sept. 25, a date Trump floated. Fox also previously agreed to host a Trump-Harris debate.
Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have agreed to attend ABC’s debate, the network confirmed Thursday afternoon.
The announcement appeared to mark a reversal from Trump, who said last week that he would not participate in a debate on ABC because his pending defamation lawsuit against the network created a “conflict of interest.”
Trump’s freewheeling presser, which lasted about an hour, came amid a swell of momentum for the Democratic ticket of Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
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
Trump’s campaign is heaping pressure on Harris and Walz to take questions from the media, accusing her of dodging the press.
“She hasn’t done an interview, she can’t do an interview, she’s barely competent,” Trump said at the presser.
Harris, the vice president, has largely sidestepped reporters since President Joe Biden withdrew his reelection bid and endorsed her as his replacement last month.
As she and Walz have embarked on a kickoff campaign swing through pivotal battleground states, Trump’s campaign and his allies have tried to browbeat them into going off the cuff.
But it’s not clear whether the pressure campaign will work on the Democratic ticket, which is still riding a sudden surge in voter enthusiasm and a boost in the polls.
Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said before Trump’s presser that the ex-president is “throwing tantrums” because he isn’t 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.
