U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, speaks on the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta on Sept. 20, 2024. Harris spoke about abortion and reproductive rights in Georgia as she continues to campaign against Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday that she can be open to debating former President Donald Trump for a second time in October, ahead of the November U.S. presidential election.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s campaign, said in a statement that Harris has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on Oct. 23. That date is lower than two weeks before the election.
“I’ll gladly accept a second presidential debate on October 23. I hope @realDonaldTrump will join me,” Harris wrote in a social media post on X.
It is not the primary time the Harris camp has proposed one other match. Shortly after Harris and Trump participated in a debate hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10, O’Malley Dillon said Harris was ready for round two against him. But as Harris was raising tens of millions of dollars following the campaign, Trump declined to debate her again.
In a Sept. 12 post on the Trump Media & Technology Group’s social network, Truth Social, the Republican presidential nominee said there can be “no third debate.”
On Saturday, a Trump campaign spokesperson referred CNBC back to Trump’s Truth Social post about there being no third debate.
“She’s done one debate,” Trump said at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday. “I’ve done two. It’s too late to do one other. I’d like to, in some ways, however it’s too late. The voting is forged.”
The primary 2024 debate for Trump was against the present president, Joe Biden. CNN hosted the event in June. But Biden struggled on the controversy stage. Democratic donors expressed concerns about Biden’s prospects, and Democratic members of Congress called on Biden to finish his election bid. In August, Harris accepted the presidential nomination on the Democratic National Convention.
“Donald Trump should not have any problem agreeing to this debate,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in her statement. “It is identical format and setup because the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules and rankings.”
— CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.
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