(LifeSiteNews) – Former President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he is ruling out future debates against Vice President and Democrat nominee Kamala Harris, declaring he won Tuesday’s debate and therefore no more are unnecessary.
Trump and Harris squared off in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, for a wide-ranging engagement in which Harris avoided directly answering several questions and made several false claims such as denying Democrat defense of late-term abortion and infanticide, but was generally more polished than Trump’s comparatively unfocused performance. Most non-liberal observers agreed that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were biased in favor of Harris, but differed on how significant a factor that bias was to the outcome.
That night, Trump was quick to declare victory, citing unscientific and unfinished online polls. The next morning, he called in to Fox and Friends, where he began to cast doubt on additional debates he had previously called for, adding that he would not want anchors Bret Baier or Martha MacCallum to moderate a hypothetical Fox debate due to their critical analysis of his performance, and would prefer the job be given to Trump-friendly pundits Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham.
He went on to post Wednesday on Truth Social that the “Fake News Media” did not give him “the credit that was due” for his “GREAT DEBATE,” and that “Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92-8, so why would I do a Rematch?”
On Thursday, Trump speculated that Davis gave Harris questions in advance, and that if it was proven true, “ABC’s license should be TERMINATED.” He also explicitly declared, “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE,” arguing, “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.”
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” Harris responded. “We owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
Initial polls indicate that more viewers thought Harris won than Trump, including Republicans who still plan to vote for him but are now more worried about his prospects; the betting markets shifted somewhat in the Democrat candidate’s favor as well. At the same time, however, independents preferred Trump’s answers on a number of specific topics such as immigration, and the overall race has not shifted significantly according to the polls.
Polling aggregations by RealClearPolitics and RaceToTheWH continue to show Harris narrowly leading Trump in national polling and winning the Electoral College by narrow margins in swing states, although their standing has tightened in recent days.