It’s only been two days since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and Donald Trump is already trying to get out of debating Vice President Kamala Harris.
The former president was up late again Monday night ranting on Truth Social, and turned his attention to ABC News, which is set to hold the second presidential debate on September 10. The change-up in presumptive Democratic presidential nominees means Trump will likely face Harris onstage.
“ABC Fake News is such a joke, among the absolute WORST in the business. They try to make Crooked Joe into a brave warrior because he didn’t have the ‘guts’ to fight it out—He quit!” Trump wrote. “They then tried to make ‘Sleepy’ look like a great President—he was the WORST, and Lyin’ Kamala into a competent person, which she is not. ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, is not worthy of holding a Debate, of which I hope there will be many!”
In a separate post, Trump also accused the Democratic Party of misleading the Republican Party and “causing it to waste a great deal of time and money.” In another, he labeled Harris the “‘Border Czar’ who never visited the border,” and knocked her for her “absolutely terrible pole [sic] numbers.”
These posts mark day two of Trump’s meltdown over Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement of Harris. In the place of well-reasoned, or spelled, criticisms, Trump seems set on airing his grievances over the next debate, possibly to create a context for skipping it altogether.
“Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC,” Trump wrote on Sunday. It’s not clear why these two thoughts are connected, but one thing is certain: Trump is scared enough of Harris to seek a friendlier debate venue.
When it came to Biden, Trump said he’d debate him “anytime, any place.” Now it’s only sometimes and a few specific places. Although, to be sure, Trump did a lot of whining about the first debate too. He tried desperately to undermine the credibility of the hosts and Biden’s performance before it had even happened.
Ultimately, Trump was able to flourish in CNN’s controlled environment, where his many baseless claims went uninterrupted, and undisputed until after the program had ended.
