CNN
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Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will not participate in the next presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“There will be no third debate!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to his first showdown with President Joe Biden in June and his second with Harris on Tuesday.
Harris’ campaign had called for another debate after the vice president and Trump faced off on ABC’s presidential debate in Philadelphia. Harris reiterated that call at a rally in Charlotte on Thursday, saying, “This election and what’s at stake couldn’t be more important, and I believe we have an obligation to the voters to hold another debate.”
But Trump appeared to end speculation about whether the next debate would take place, saying on Thursday that Harris should “focus on what should have been done over the last four years.”
Harris’ campaign said it was not taking at face value Trump’s announcement that there would be no more presidential debates.
“He’s changing his position every day,” a senior adviser to Ms. Harris said. “We expect to see a different position emerge.”
After the Philadelphia debate, Trump defended his performance, telling reporters that the ABC hosts were “very unfair” and that he was “three to one” during the debate. Speaking on Fox News the following day, Trump continued to insist that he “won” and said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to take part in another debate.
“In boxing and UFC, when a fighter loses or gets knocked out, they stand up and yell, ‘I demand a rematch, I demand a rematch!’ It’s the same in debates. She lost badly last night. We are winning in all the polls,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
As of Thursday morning, all major scientific polls of the debate had pointed to a win for Harris, according to CNN Fact Check, including a flash CNN/SSRS poll of registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate, which largely agreed that Harris beat Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former independent presidential candidate who supported Trump after dropping his own candidacy, told Fox News that while Trump won the debate on “substance,” Harris “clearly won on delivery, polish, organization and preparation.”
Trump and Harris’ running mates, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are scheduled to face off in a debate hosted by CBS on Oct. 1.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s MJ Lee, Kahnita Iyer, Stephen Collinson and Daniel Dale contributed to this story.
