The controversy surrounding the debate says a lot about the current state of the presidential election.
If only I knew what it was.
Donald Trump has denounced “ABC Fake News” and suggested he may pull out of the September 10 debate. Speaking at a Vietnamese restaurant in Virginia yesterday, he said it was Kamala Harris who was pulling out of the debate.
Harris campaign aide Michael Tyler responded on MSNBC by saying the vice president was in fact eager to debate and thought all the issues had been resolved.
Kamala Harris on the cover of Time Magazine: Is her anti-Trump momentum fueled by a never-ending media honeymoon?
My guess is that the debate will take place and that it will be the kind of last-minute negotiation that Trump is known for.
Remember, this debate was arranged with Joe Biden, who met Trump for the first time as requested by the president, but it ended in a fiasco and he dropped out of the race. As a result, Harris became the replacement candidate, but this was not a “great success.” It is clear that Trump misses Biden, because no one ran against Kamala.
A rule of thumb is that candidates who are seen as lagging or losing momentum want a debate with more urgency.
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. giving up his presidential hopes to join the Trump campaign, the outcome of the election is anyone's guess and extremely difficult to predict. (Left: Joe Raedl/Getty Images; Right: Robert Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images; Inset: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
During the CNN debate, Biden insisted on muting the microphones of candidates who were not allowed to speak, apparently trying to avoid a repeat of their first showdown in 2020, when Trump constantly interrupted him.
But now Ms Kamala is insisting that the microphones remain on no matter who is speaking, a move her campaign says would prove Mr Trump is incapable of behaving “presidentially” for 90 minutes.
On the other hand, if the former president interrupts her frequently, it will remind people of things they don't like about him, and it might come across as more disrespectful to a woman of color, so she can complain that he has overstepped her.
Trump refuses the advice and tries to ridicule, insult and AI Kamala, but will it work?
But in fairness, what Harris wants now is exactly what happened in nearly every presidential debate this fall, with the exception of the CNN debate at the urging of the 81-year-old Biden.
Is this controversy enough to ruin things? Again, I don't think so.
Here's what Trump said (and tweeted!):
“I watched ABC Fake News this morning, and after watching both the ridiculously biased interview with Tom Cotton (great reporter!) by flippant reporter Jonathan Karl (K?) and the so-called Trump-hater panel, I ask: Why should I be doing a debate with Kamala Harris on that network?…
President Trump slammed ABC and other mainstream media outlets in a blistering rebuke on Truth Social and suggested he might not take part in the upcoming debate with Vice President Harris on September 10. (Ian Mole/Getty Images)
Will panelist Donna Brazile question the Marxist candidate the way she did the evil Hillary Clinton? Will Kamala's best friend, the head of ABC, do the same? After mocking the name of George Stephanopoulos, who will not be at the debate, Trump says, “They have a ton of questions to answer!!! Why did Harris turn down FOX, NBC, CBS and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”
The ABC panelists who drew Trump's ire were Kahl, Politico's Jonanthan Martin and Rachel Bade, and contributor Donna Brazile.
Facing an overwhelmingly hostile press, the 45th president may be seeking attention after a month of coverage endorsing Kamala. The Democratic National Convention was a success in almost every respect, including Harris' speech, but it was rather striking when Rachel Maddow said that she and her staff at MSNBC headquarters “stood up and cheered” when Tim Waltz appeared.
Equally interesting is how, despite many commentators defending Biden's mental acuity, Trump has sought to portray him as having weakened a bit now that he's facing off against a 59-year-old woman.
Most journalists and commentators have shown little interest in Harris' refusal to give interviews, with some even saying she shouldn't be interviewed because things are going so well. Harris' deputy campaign manager told MediaBuzz that the first interview is expected by August 31, and it will be known if it is someone with liberal sympathies.
Meanwhile, Trump held two lengthy press conferences in about a week, but MSNBC refused to broadcast the second one live, with the network's critics saying Trump just lies all the time.
RFK JR resigns, blaming the media
RFK Jr. dropped out of the race to endorse Trump in an attempt to kill Harris' post-convention excitement, but this will no doubt give Harris at least a slight edge in such a close race. MSNBC again refused to carry Kennedy's press conference live. So does anyone really believe that if RFK had endorsed Kamala Harris, the network would not have aired it live and would have immediately invited her?
While Kennedy's fans are welcome to vote for him, his brothers called his support for Trump the ultimate betrayal. His response was to scapegoat the media.
“ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN combined only aired two live interviews. Instead, the networks continued to churn out offensive articles that were inaccurate and often contained vulgar audio and libelous slurs…
“Your organisations present themselves as mouthpieces for the government and shorthand for the institutions of power.”
RFK Jr.'s withdrawal from the race effectively negated any post-convention morale boost that might have been expected from Harris. (Lev Ladin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Many of the interviews were pre-taped, but the networks gave RFK very little airtime because he was a minority candidate with no chance of winning a single state. He was certainly a flamboyant candidate, claiming to have brain worms and hiding the fact that he kept a dead bear carcass in his car intending to eat it for dinner, but that's another story entirely.
And consider this: RFK ran as a Democrat, then became an independent. He tried to make a deal with both Kamala and Trump, promising top medical jobs in exchange for his support if either of them won. But it didn't work.
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That is, he endorsed Trump anyway, without a wink and a nod, and without the promise of a job.
Doesn’t it raise the question of what Kennedy is actually arguing?
As speakers from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama have warned, Harris faces a tough two months as Republicans relentlessly attack her record, particularly the left-wing positions she has unexplainedly shifted from 2020.
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Some analysts say she is calling herself an “underdog” to position herself as a candidate for change, when in fact she is the underdog.
