Donald Trump rules out a debate rematch with Kamala Harris for 2024 election

Donald Trump has confirmed there will not be a debate rematch with Kamala Harris in a lengthy Truth Social post after 48 hours of speculation. 

After publicly tamping down calls for another debate with the vice president, Trump delivered an unambiguous rejection of the idea Thursday – saying there ‘will be no third debate.’

Trump made the declarative statement in all-caps on his site, hours after a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed a majority of registered voters concluded Harris won the debate. 

Despite this and a DailyMail snap poll and others taken in the minutes after the debate, the former president once again compared the vice president to a defeated prizefighter begging for a rematch.

His decision to forego another contest comes despite Trump claiming, with some justification, to have forced President Joe Biden out of the race during what turned out to be their only debate of the election cycle following Biden’s disastrous performance. But on Tuesday, according to the first major survey that was in the field for two days, a majority of voters believed Trump didn’t appear sharp and that Harris won.

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

‘She and Crooked Joe have destroyed our Country, with millions of criminals and mentally deranged people pouring into the USA, totally unchecked and unvetted, and with Inflation bankrupting our Middle Class. Everyone knows this, and all of the other problems caused by Kamala and Joe – It was discussed in great detail during the First Debate with Joe, and the Second Debate with Comrade Harris.’

‘KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!’ Trump concluded.

Harris, 59, weighed in within minutes after Trump’s post, calling for a rematch at her first campaign rally since the two rivals met onstage in Philadelphia. 

‘Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate, and I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate,’ she said to cheers from her Charlotte, North Carolina crowd.

She also used her rally to hit Trump on health care with other fodder from the debate, ridiculing his line that he has ‘concepts’ of a plan to replace Obamacare after calling for it for years. 

An October debate would have been another high-stakes opportunity for either candidate to try to land a decisive blow, in a race where they are battling at near-draws in multiple swing states. 

Without it, the candidates will rely on a series of visits to battlegrounds. Trump is campaigning in Arizona today and Nevada Friday, while Harris is North Carolina and Pennsylvania Friday, with her top surrogates planning to hit every swing state this weekend. 

His decision came after Trump, 79, inveighed against real-time fact-checking of his answers in the ABC News debate and said he was ‘less inclined’ to participate in another one after giving his own performance a sterling review. 

‘Well, I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night,’ Trump said in a call-in interview with Fox & Friends. 

And in an earlier online post, Trump said Kamala Harris is demanding a debate rematch because she was ‘beaten badly,’ and compared her to a prize fighter begging for a rematch, a metaphor he stuck with for days.

The former president, an Ultimate Fighting Championship fan, cited a poll he did not identify that had him walloping Harris. That came despite other snap polls by CNN and DailyMail had her prevailing in the bout, as some conservative pundits marvelled at how Harris baited Trump into a response by hitting him on crowd sizes.

‘In the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, “I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!”’, Trump posted on his Truth Social site. ‘Well, it’s no different with a Debate. She was beaten badly last night. Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92-8, so why would I do a Rematch?  

Harris’s campaign had called for a second debate in October in the minutes after Tuesday’s prime time clash – setting up the chance of reprise putting the onus on Trump to state his intentions. 

Trump complained about the network that hosted as well as the moderators, and even suggested without evidence that his rival got to see the questions ahead of time. 

‘We won the debate. We had a terrible, terrible network,’ he told Fox, once again tearing into ABC for it’s real-time fact checks of some of his statements.

‘I think they were terrible. They should be embarrassed. I mean, they kept correcting me and I said what I said was largely right or I hope it was right. But what they said was absolutely wrong.’

He said they ‘refused to correct’ misstatements by Harris. Moderators interjected after his own statements on January 6, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and abortion.  

‘The other you know what what she said. And they refused to correct. I even complained a couple of times. Why aren’t you correcting them? Look, they should have corrected si or seven times. She told an outright lie. Another one is Project 2025. They know it has nothing to do with me,’ Trump said.

Donald Trump blasted ABC’s handling of the debate and tore into its moderators. He said he was ‘less inclined’ to do another debate because he believes he won

He was referencing Harris’ continued attacks trying to yoke him to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Numerous ex-Trump advisors worked on it, but his campaign has repeatedly said it has nothing to do with its policy platform.

Trump called the debate rigged and suggested Team Harris knew what she would be asked – in a comment that pointed back to the 2016 debate where hacked emails revealed a tip-off to the Hillary Clinton camp.  

‘They had a rigged show with somebody that maybe even had the answers. I mean, I’ll be honest, I watched her talk and I said, you know, she seems awfully familiar with the questions,’ Trump said.

He also suggested the network should have its broadcast license yanked. ‘To be honest, they’re a news organization—they have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,’ Trump vented.

Trump took a dig at Fox News anchos Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, hours after Baier said Trump ‘took the bait’ from Kamala Harris during one of her most memorable attacks. Baier called Harris ‘clearly well-prepared’ and ‘practiced’ as well as ‘on the offensive.’ 

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret,’ Trump said. ‘I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I’d love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura. You know, somebody else. Let’s give let’s give other people a shot.’ 

(Fellow host Brian Kilmeade came to their defense, saying they would do a ‘phenomenal job.’) 

He was referencing Fox host Jesse Watters, who himself called the debate  ‘rough’ and ‘pretty intense’ and Laura Ingraham, who herself said Trump ‘missed a few opportunities,’ as well as host Sean Hannity. 

Harris wants another debate with Trump, her campaign said shortly after a televised smackdown where she infuriated Trump with an attack on his campaign rally crowds and Trump tried to brand her a ‘Marxist.’

Trump was non-committal after taking to the ‘spin room’ minutes after the contest, saying he’d have to think about it.   

‘Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,’ wrote Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon followign the debate. ‘That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?’

Trump had earlier called for three debates last month after President Biden stepped back from his campaing, having earlier negotiated two debates with Biden. His stunning withdrawal from the race prompted a fresh set of talks over the ABC debate.

But when the candidate sat down with friendly interviewer Sean Hannity of Fox News in the spin room after the debate, and wouldn’t commit to an additional debate with Harris.

Heading to the spin room was itself the kind of move that candidates sometimes undertake to try to move on from an on-stage performance. 

‘I don’t know I have to think about it,’ he responded when Hannity told him Harris’s campaign wanted another one. 

‘But if you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn’t do it. Why should I do another debate?’ he said. He compared it to a boxer: ‘That’s, you know, what happens when you’re a prize fighter and you lose, you immediately want a new fight,’ he said.

Trump did allow ‘maybe if it was on a fair network’ he would do it. He complained that it was ‘three against one,’ a reference to the times ABC moderator interjected with fact checks on Trump’s comments. 

Trump gave himself a good review, calling it his ‘best debate ever’ even while grousing about the moderators.

Hannity pressed him again at the end of his interview on whether he would do another debate, and Trump still sounded disinclined. ‘The reason you do a second debate is if you lose, and they lost … But I’ll think about it,’ he said.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said his wife VP Kamala Harris won the debate

Harris put her hand on her chin when Trump called her a ‘Marxist’ during the debate

Trump went for the sit-down interview immediately after the debate, with plans to be back on Fox Wednesday morning

Trump entered the contest as the more seasoned debater, having taken part in seven presidential debates and a raft of primary ones. Harris, by contrast, ended her her campaign early in the 2020 primary process.

A CNN snap poll conducted shortly after the debate had Harris beating Trump 63-37 when viewers who watched it got asked who won.

One of the most memorable moments came when Harris needled Trump about his campaign rallies.

‘People start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,’ Harris said. ‘The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.’

Trump demanded to respond even as moderator David Muir tried to direct a question to him.

‘People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go,’ Trump countered. ‘She’s bussing them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light,’ he said, referring to a debunked theory that Harris was relying on AI to generate an image of a packed rally.

Trump kept rolling, claiming migrants were eating people’s pets. ‘In Springfield [Ohio], they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,’ earning a fact check from the moderator.

‘Talk about extreme …’ Harris said, laughing, when asked for her response.