Why Trump Passed Up a Debate Rematch — For Now

CNN
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The great showman has just turned his back on tens of millions of viewers.

At least for now.

Donald Trump’s refusal to participate in another presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris marks a key moment in the 2024 campaign, signaling vulnerability for a political career built on his television fame and mastery of theatrical craft.

The former president said he doesn’t need a rematch because he won Tuesday night’s debate, despite overwhelming reviews that said he fared poorly against a vice president who outshone a former reality star.

“Because we’ve had two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate. It’s too late anyway, the voting has already started,” Trump said during a wild campaign speech in Arizona on Thursday, also referring to his first debate against Joe Biden, on CNN in June, which led to the president being dropped from the race by his own party.

But there’s an alternate possible explanation: that Trump — who normally can’t resist the chance to dominate the small screen — isn’t relishing a repeat of a showdown in which he came unprepared and unfocused, blowing his best chance to defeat his opponent in a cliffhanger election. The former president may be right to limit his risk; after all, polls show him locked in a neck-and-neck race with Harris in a race in which voters’ fundamental priorities, like the economy and immigration, could tip in his favor.

After their onstage encounter Tuesday, Harris had said she and her opponent owed it to voters to debate again. Trump’s move opened the way for her team to boast that he’s afraid to debate her and to promote a performance in which she mocked and rebuked an ill-tempered ex-president with bravado and a smile. Harris’ senior campaign adviser, David Plouffe, criticized Trump on X as a “chicken man.”

The Republican nominee often changes his mind. But his announcement that there will be no new debate seemed more adamant than much of his previous statements and spin.

His Arizona event — apparently intended to focus on economic policy, judging by a backdrop that read “No taxes on tips” and “Make housing affordable” — revealed that Trump was still fuming about Tuesday night. He spent a long stretch early in his speech doing a play-by-play of the debate, bitterly complaining about Harris’s answers and claiming he’d been set up by ABC News. His litany of complaints, however, belied his claim that he’d won. “People said I was angry at the debate, angry, and yes, I’m angry because he (Biden) let 21 million illegal aliens invade our communities,” Trump said, citing unverified figures on undocumented immigration.

Harris insists she’s an underdog as new controversy keeps Trump busy

Trump’s aversion to a second debate with Harris came as both candidates were en route to the most intense tit-for-tat campaign in days. But Trump was also embroiled in fresh controversy over the extreme company he often keeps, after traveling to a 9/11 memorial with far-right polemicist Laura Loomer, who has pushed conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman whose conspiracy theorist endeared her to the “Make America Great Again” movement, rebuked Loomer for a “horrible and extremely racist” social media post disparaging Harris’ Indian-American heritage.

The uproar over whether there will be a debate and Loomer’s proximity to Trump are examples of the heated controversies that flare up in the final stages of campaigns, often seeming irrelevant to the final outcome. But as a close race has been reduced to a daily grind for potentially only a few hundred thousand voters in a few states, such storms reveal much about the candidates and their campaigns.

Trump’s extreme defensiveness and Harris’ enthusiasm on the campaign trail in North Carolina on Thursday paint a picture of how both campaigns think their candidate performed during the debate.

As she did after her euphoric convention in Chicago, the Democratic nominee implored her supporters not to become complacent. “Understand that we are the underdog,” the vice president told a large crowd in Charlotte.

It’s too early for a critical mass of polls to track the true impact of debates on the race eight weeks before Election Day. And debate outcomes are often poor predictors of election outcomes.

But the candidates’ itineraries Thursday showed both sides understand how close the election can be. Democrats haven’t won North Carolina since 2008, but the state could help pave an alternate path to the White House if Harris can’t win crucial Pennsylvania. Trump’s trip to Arizona underscored how a state that once looked red when Biden was in the running is now competitive again with Harris as the nominee who has expanded the electoral map for Democrats.

Both candidates need to win over moderate, suburban, swing voters in the swing states. And they’re taking very different approaches. Harris vowed Thursday to unite the country and reached out to traditional Republicans disaffected with Trump. She touted endorsements from former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, adding, “Democrats, Republicans and independents are supporting our campaign.”

If Harris is trying to seduce the suburbs, Trump is trying to scare them. He mused on a series of dark scenarios involving the idea that America has been invaded by foreigners, escaped prisoners and criminals flooding small towns with “Harris migrant crime.” He repeated the false claims spread by conservatives that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Though he occasionally fell back on what appeared to be a prepared text highlighting Americans’ economic woes—announcing, for example, that he would propose eliminating overtime taxes—Trump displayed the exact same lack of focus that hampered his debate performance. And once again, he seemed more concerned with unleashing his outlandish rhetoric and dark jokes than with raising the issues that could win him the election.

At times, Trump would engage in bizarre diversions. Not for the first time, he seemed fixated on the size of a large man in the auditorium. He asked, “Wasn’t ‘The Apprentice’ a great show?” and reminisced wistfully about the final night of his 2016 campaign. He also recounted conversations with former first lady Melania Trump in which he called her “Darling” and she criticized his jokes, his hair and his habit of mocking Biden’s descent down a flight of stairs.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump is underperforming his own campaign. His hard-hitting ads and his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, are making sharper economic arguments than he is.

Yet Trump still leads Harris in most polls when voters are asked who they trust most to manage the economy and immigration. So while his rhetoric may seem outrageous to many liberals, his message clearly resonates with millions of Americans. The economic argument buried deep in his tirade about the Biden-Harris administration’s performance hinted at why the former president might still win the election. His behavior during much of his Arizona speech provided a glimpse into why he might not.

The ex-president’s continued indiscipline on Thursday suggests one reason his campaign may not want their candidate back on the debate stage — after 60 million people watched his first meeting with Harris.

But Bryan Lanza, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, insisted it was a tactical decision. “It’s not a question of being afraid, it’s a question of what are our priorities at the end of the election,” he said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” Lanza added: “We have a better chance through one-on-one interviews — through our rallies, going into these states and having that impact — than we do through a debate that’s going to stack the deck against President Trump.”

But Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said Harris had intimidated the former president. “Donald Trump was weak, he came across as a little desperate, frankly,” Pritzker told Wolf Blitzer. “Kamala Harris came across as strong and presidential. If he had another debate with her and it happened again, that would be the end of his campaign — he would be done.”

Pritzker was making the best case for Harris. But she might not fare so well in a second debate. And in 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was judged the winner of each of her debates with Trump — but it was he who took the oath of office the following January.

Not everyone who knows Trump thinks his decision is final. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a CNN commentator who previously served as Trump’s White House communications director, foresaw a scenario in which the former president could change his mind as he approaches Election Day.

“I predict he’ll change his mind about this,” Griffin said on “The Situation Room.”

“If Kamala Harris sees a surge in the polls based on her performance in the debate that most people think she won, then I can imagine Donald Trump in a couple of weeks saying, ‘I challenge her to a debate,’” Griffin said.

“I could see him thinking that if things heat up a little bit in the last eight weeks, he might need a big moment to stay competitive against her.”