Minutes after the presidential debate ended Tuesday night, Kamala Harris' campaign challenged Donald Trump to another one. Both sides have been discussing scheduling a showdown later this month with NBC News, the New York Times reports, and Trump had said he'd committed to it. But on Thursday, at the end of a long Truth Social post critical of his Democratic opponent, Trump said to forget it. In all capital letters, he wrote, "There will be no third debate!"
An hour later, Harris posted on X, "We owe it to the voters to have another debate," per Variety. Although Trump said he won the debate with Harris, allies disagree and were debating whether a rematch would help or hurt the Republican nominee, per the Washington Post. Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity that night that he "would have to think about" whether to debate his opponent again; he also had debated President Biden before Harris became the Democratic candidate. His post said, "polls clearly show that I won" over "Comrade Kamala Harris," though it's not clear what polls those would be. Reuters, YouGov, and CNN reported that their polls showed a large majority of voters said Harris did better.
This might not be the last word on the issue from Trump, the Times points out; such definitive declarations often turn out to be the first move in a negotiation, and he previously said he wanted three debates with Harris. Campaigning in North Carolina on Thursday, Harris also told that crowd that voters are owed another debate. She broke into laughter at one point while mocking Trump's debate answer on whether he'd come up with a health care plan yet. "I have concepts of a plan," he answered, per the Post. "Concepts!" Harris said Thursday, then laughed for a few seconds. (More presidential debate stories.)
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