- Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would not agree to another debate with Kamala Harris.
- It came after Harris was seen as successfully baiting Trump during their Tuesday debate.
It looks like Tuesday night's presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump may have been the final face-off of the 2024 election.
In a Truth Social rant on Thursday afternoon, Trump declared that he would not debate Harris again, arguing that he had won the first debate.
"When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, "I WANT A REMATCH," Trump wrote, going on to say: "KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!"
During the first debate, which took place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Harris successfully baited Trump into veering off-message on several occasions. Immediately afterwards, her campaign released a statement challenging the former president to another debate.
Trump later took to the spin room to argue that he had won the debate while remaining noncommittal over whether he would do another. "They want a second debate because they lost," he told reporters that night.
It's possible that the former president may change his mind in the coming days and weeks, but Thursday's statement represented the first time he had definitively turned down the Harris campaign's challenge.
Harris quickly responded to Trump, writing on X that the candidates "owe it to the voters to have another debate."
Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 12, 2024
We owe it to the voters to have another debate.