Less than two months before Election Day, Harris agrees to a CNN debate against Trump in October – but he says it’s “too late”

Vice President Kamala Harris agreed to another debate with former President Donald Trump on Saturday – but Trump declined.

Harris accepted an invitation from CNN to a debate on October 23 and wrote in a post on X: “I hope @realDonaldTrump will join me.” Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement to CNN that “Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate.”

During a campaign rally in North Carolina on Saturday, Trump said it was “too late” for another debate with Harris.

“The problem with another debate is that it’s just too late – the voting has already started,” he told the crowd. “She had her chance on Fox,” he added, referring to Fox News’ invitation to host the two for a debate in October.

In August, Trump agreed to three debates with Harris ahead of Election Day: one on September 4, which never took place, one on September 10, and one on September 25, which is not scheduled to take place.

Read more at Yahoo News:

But after the September 10 debate – after which Harris gained a five-point lead over Trump among registered voters, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll – Trump seemed to have changed his mind about debating the former California senator again.

“THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he wrote in a Truth Social post on September 12.

“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’ Polls clearly show that I won Tuesday night’s debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the radical left Democratic candidate, and she immediately demanded a second debate,” he wrote.

But last week, Trump hinted that he might participate in another debate, telling reporters in California that it depends on “whether I get in the right mood.”

Trump has only debated Harris once before, but a new debate would be his third this election cycle. On June 27, he debated President Biden, who was running for re-election at the time. Biden’s performance in that face-off raised concerns among Democrats seeking to defeat Trump in the general election this fall. Under pressure, Biden soon withdrew his candidacy and nominated his vice president to replace him.