Donald Trump declares victory, says ‘no third debate’

Donald Trump has announced he will not participate in another debate - insisting he won the showdown watched by 67 million people.

Donald Trump has announced he will not participate in another televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former President dropped the bombshell on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, just one day after claiming he would be happy to debate his Democratic rival again on NBC or Fox.

“THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he wrote, including in his tally the earlier debate with US President Joe Biden in June.

“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” Harris posted on X in response an hour later. “We owe it to the voters to have another debate.”

Ms Harris put Trump on the defensive in their ABC News-hosted clash, watched by 67 million people.

Almost immediately, her campaign called for a second showdown in October.

Donald Trump has declared he won’t debate Kamala Harris a second time. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP

However, Trump’s latest statement, issued in his characteristic mix of all-caps segments, made clear he has bowed out - while claiming that Harris is just desperate for a second chance.

“Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate,” he wrote in his post.

“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH,’” he said.

“We’ve done two,” Trump told The NY Post.

“You know, one against Biden, one against Comrade Kamala. I did well. I did really well. So we just don’t think that there’s any need for it.

“The debate polls, every single poll, had us winning it.”

A CNN snap poll of viewers said Harris performed better than Trump by 63 percent to 37, while a YouGov poll said Harris laid out a clearer plan by 43 to 32 percent.

A debate between the vice presidential running mates, Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican Senator J.D. Vance, from Ohio, is currently set to be hosted by CBS News on October 1.

The 45th president unloaded in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning about the “unfair” ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.

“It was three on one. … It was a rigged deal, as I assumed it would be, because when you looked at the fact that they were correcting everything and not correcting with her,” he said. “I thought I did a great job.”

- With AFP, NY Post