Trump had previously used those words back in March to lay down the gauntlet to President Joe Biden as the two rivals sparred about when and where they would face each other on the debate stage.
But, now that Biden has stepped aside and Harris has become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former president appears to have gotten cold feet.
On Thursday, Harris was asked by reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland about debating Trump.
She said she was âreadyâ to go head-to-head with the former president on stage but accused him of âbackpedalingâ on his commitment to the debate provisionally scheduled for September 10 on ABC News.
âI have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate,â she said.
âHe agreed to that previously. Now, here he is backpedaling and Iâm ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so Iâm ready to go.â
Trumpâs campaign team subsequently confirmed that he would not commit to debating Harris â at least not yet â blaming Democratic instability for the u-turn.
Only the Ben one is Jewish enough. Jokingly of course, and actually could be a problem because of the gaza conflict, although I donât think minor radical portion of those protesters will vote anyway, and the Muslim vote that stayed away from Biden during the primaries, will not vote Trump.
I think the interest in the value of a VP pick should be seen less through the prism of what value it has on the election, and more on the value it gives to the press for them to show you how smart they are at predicting how an event will be viewed and what effect it will have. In terms of real electoral impact, I have seen an analysis suggesting that no VP pick has directly increased voter share in their state sufficient to turn a state the ticket wouldnât have won since LBJ did for Kennedy in Texas in 60, but there is undoubtedly a meta effect in terms of how the press will talk about the pick and the ticket.
My cynical take is the press is now desperate for a choice that gives them an opening to pick at possible divisions in the party. This situation of dems being excited and unified is boring for them, and gives them no avenue to wield their mega brain with hot takes. To that point, I think the pick should be a defensive one, one that offers as little potential to shift focus away from Dem unity and excitement as possible. Kelly has some liabilities over labor (not pro union enough) and guns (too scary for gun people), and Shapiro has a load of liabilities related to Israel and as a recent AG will have a lot of potential skeletons in his closet that will making comprehensively vetting him on this quick a time scale a big challenge, so I am a bit apprehensive about those guys seemingly being out in front when I dont think there are the same liabilities for Cooper, Walz or Bashear
Right now in America the messaging around Israel/Gaza is seriously lacking.
A grown up needs to speak clearly, and Harris is that person.
She supports the right of Israel to defend itself, and just reiterated that. Most Americans are there too. But she just went further by saying How Israel defends itself is crucial. She seems well placed to hold them more accountable. Legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitism, and Harris looks like one of the few grown ups in American politics who can deliver that message.
On the other side, wanting the Palestinians to be treated much better, even to the point of having their own state, is not the same as being pro Hamas. Again, this is a message that only a grown up in American politics can deliver.
I havenât seen that person on the Republican side, and they appear to be blind supporters of genocide, as evidenced by the fawning over Netanyahu at Congress.
The whole issue might be choppy waters for Harris to engage in, but America deserves better messaging and leadership on this.
Not only is it the right thing to do, but strategically it will bring many Democrats back into the fold as they have decoupled from Biden in recent months. Lots of them are in Michigan, and presumably it will strengthen the Democrat chances to win that swing state.
In addition, for any swing voters who have been troubled by Israelâs response to the Hamas atrack, but they havenât quite known how to express that - and I suspect it is millions of people - her leadership might seem like a breath of fresh air.
Not only that, but JD Vance humping a couch, and âTheyâre so weird,â is all over US social media. GOP is like a defender with his head on a swivel as Mo just blew past him, and hammered one into the top left corner.
As my mate said, âKamala has played the reverse Uno card on âem.â
Iâd like to ask @Nobluff whether the above doesnât cause him at least a little concern.
Isnât it a bit of a worry when a candidate is talking like this?
The perfect Trump statement. He doesnt explicitly say that why their vote wont be needed, but heâs told us in plenty of other ways that allows us to fill in the blanks. But the press wont (something something journalistic standards), it gives his people he understand exactly what he means plausible deniability to pretend otherwise, and enough of the electorate simply refuse to believe that America is a place where these things can happen and get angry at the dems for being so inflammatory in their criticisms of him.