ABC confirms Trump-Harris presidential debate on September 10

The confirmation came soon after Trump called for three presidential debates during a freewheeling press conference meant to recapture the spotlight after Harris picked up momentum.

Kamala Harris will debate Donald Trump on September 10. Picture: AFP.

The ABC will host a presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on September 10, the US television network has confirmed.

“Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend,” the network said on X.

ABC News will host qualifying presidential candidates to debate on September 10 on ABC. Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend the ABC debate. https://t.co/jaHStOmGCDpic.twitter.com/62P2lCNJjd

— ABC News (@ABC) August 8, 2024

The confirmation came soon after Mr Trump called for three presidential debates against Vice President Kamala Harris during a freewheeling press conference meant to recapture the spotlight after his Democratic rival picked up momentum.

Mr Trump said he agreed to a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News, another Sept. 10 on ABC, and a third on NBC on Sept. 25. The ABC debate was previously agreed upon when President Biden was in the race, but Mr Trump had called into question whether he would face off on ABC with Harris at the top of the ticket.

“I hope she agrees to them,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday afternoon. “I think they will be very revealing.”

A representative for Harris didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

ABC said Harris and Trump both confirmed they will attend the Sept. 10 debate. NBC declined to comment. Fox didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr Trump also said there would be a peaceful transfer of power after the US presidential vote – but immediately questioned whether there would be “honest elections.”

“Of course there’ll be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time,” he told reporters, despite a mob of his supporters storming Congress in 2021 after his loss. “I just hope we’re going to have honest elections.”

Earlier, Mr Biden had said he wasn’t confident of a peaceful transfer of power if Mr Trump lost the race.

“If Trump loses, I’m not confident at all,” he said in an interview with CBS News.

Mr Trump also criticised Ms Harris as dodging the news media. “She hasn’t done an interview,” Mr Trump said, echoing a line of attack from his campaign in recent days.

Nearly three weeks since President Biden dropped out of the race and Democrats coalesced around Ms Harris as the party’s presumptive nominee, the vice president hasn’t yet sat for an interview or take public questions from reporters. She has held large rallies and given statements to reporters on the tarmac while travelling the country, but hasn’t engaged with the press beyond those events.

Ms Harris’s campaign shot back that Mr Trump hasn’t kept up as rigorous a schedule and accused him of focusing on grievances rather than discussing a vision for the country. “It’s why voters will reject him again at the ballot box this November,” said Ammar Moussa, a Harris campaign spokesman.

Mr Trump had been largely out of sight since his most recent rally in Georgia on Saturday, when he attacked Republican Governor Brian Kemp as “a bad guy” while characterising Harris as overly liberal and weak on immigration.

Trump held the news conference Thursday following a briefing by campaign aides for reporters in which they outlined their strategy for winning in November, largely by courting so-called target persuadables, a sliver of undecided voters in battleground states.

Non-traditional battleground states – which the campaign said were in play when Biden was in the race, such as Virginia and Minnesota – remain in play with Harris at the top of the ticket, senior campaign officials added, further underscoring their view that her recent bump in the polls won’t last. Early polling since Biden left the race showed Harris and Trump locked in a dead heat nationally and Harris narrowly ahead in certain swing states.

AFP