Harris calls on Trump again for another TV duel – the former president refuses

Almost seven weeks before the US presidential election, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has once again rejected his Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ call for a second TV duel. The ex-president said on Saturday that it was “simply too late” for another debate with the vice president. Harris had previously sharply attacked Trump and his party for their restrictive abortion policies and accused them of “hypocrisy”.

The vice president’s campaign team announced on Saturday that Harris had accepted an invitation from CNN for a TV duel on October 23rd. The Democratic candidate is “ready for another opportunity to share the stage with Donald Trump,” said Harris’ campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon. “The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their votes,” said O’Malley Dillon.

Harris had already challenged her Republican rival to a second duel shortly after their first television debate on September 10th – which the ex-president rejected, although he declared himself the winner of the first duel. “There will be no third debate,” Trump declared at the time on his online platform Truth Social – counting not only his duel against Harris, but also the one with President Joe Biden on June 27, which was a heated discussion about the incumbent’s mental fitness had triggered. As a consequence, Biden decided not to run again.

Even after Harris’ renewed request, Trump and his campaign team continued to insist on their rejection. It is “simply too late” for another debate with the vice president, Trump said on Saturday during a campaign appearance in the state of North Carolina. Because the vote had “already begun,” he explained his stance.

The Republican was referring to the fact that polling stations for early voting have been open since Friday in the states of Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia. With this option, the authorities want to enable citizens to take part in the election despite possible scheduling difficulties and at the same time reduce the crowds on the actual election day.

According to polls and the majority of political commentators, Harris won the first debate against Trump. She put the Republican on the defensive with numerous targeted attacks. During the debate, Trump also made a racist and unsubstantiated accusation that migrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating residents’ dogs and cats.

Although Harris has since put his Republican rival on the defensive in the election campaign, polls continue to point to an extremely close race in the November 5 presidential election. In the end, the results from a handful of states, the so-called swing states, are likely to decide the winner of this year’s election.

The defining issues of the election campaign include economic and migration policy, foreign policy and abortion rights. At a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, Harris again sharply attacked Republicans for their restrictive abortion policies. “These hypocrites now want to talk about how this is in the best interests of women and children,” she said, referring to the strict abortion law in the US state, which, in her view, has led to the deaths of two women.

Harris later took up the issue at a rally in the liberal city of Madison in the swing state of Wisconsin, calling the ban on abortion “immoral.”

Restrictive abortion regulations came into force in Georgia and 21 other US states after the Supreme Court in June 2022 abolished the nationwide right to abortion that had existed for almost 50 years and placed jurisdiction over abortion rights in the hands of the states. Trump prides himself on paving the way for this by appointing conservative Supreme Court justices.

Trump, for his part, took another swipe at migrants in North Carolina. Migrants are “attacking villages and towns across the Midwest,” he said during his campaign appearance in the east coast state.