Following President Joe Biden’s historic announcement over the weekend that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race (and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place), former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump is demanding changes to the next scheduled debate.
Political pundits believe Trump wants changes to the debate because he is threatened by the prospect of facing a younger, more capable candidate.
“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 Fox News, rather than very biased ABC,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
There isn’t any legitimate reason to change the debate venue based on recent events. Up until Biden’s departure from the race, Trump was content with holding the debate on a network television station — but now that Harris will likely be his opponent, Trump suddenly wants the debate to air on a less-viewed cable network.
Trump also expressed anger on social media over having to “spend time and money” on campaigning against Biden and having to “start all over again” now that the president isn’t running. He then bizarrely suggested that the Republican Party should be “reimbursed” due to Biden dropping out, and claimed that Biden and Harris were a “threat to democracy” because Biden exiting the race supposedly ignores the will of Democratic voters in the primaries.
Trump’s own undemocratic actions, meanwhile, include instigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to usurp the Electoral College using a scheme involving fake electors to disrupt the official count, and stating that he wants to become a dictator on his first day of office should he win the presidential election this year.
Although Trump told CNN following Biden’s decision to drop out that “Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” polling shows that this isn’t true.
As of Monday morning, the aggregate of polling data on RealClearPolling.com showed that Trump was ahead of Biden, on average, by 3.0 points. Trump is also ahead of Harris, but only by 1.7 points, well within the margin of error for most polls that are conducted nationally.
Critics seized on Trump’s demands that the terms of the debate be changed, saying he was not up to the challenge of debating Harris.
“Anyone who thinks Trump isn’t running scared of Harris should check out his last few Truth Social posts,” said Zeteo’s editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan.
“Donald Trump is afraid to debate Kamala Harris,” wrote Jason Easley, managing editor at PoliticusUSA. “Donald Trump was also afraid to debate Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis [during the GOP primaries].”
“I don’t think he wants to debate Kamala Harris…he’s a political coward, there’s no doubt about it,” Al Sharpton said on MSNBC Monday morning.
“Trump backs out of scheduled debate. Afraid to face Kamala one on one,” Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall said.
“Donald Trump is too cowardly to debate Kamala Harris,” former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said.