Vice President Harris has challenged Donald Trump to a second presidential debate, this time on CNN. The proposed date — Harris has already accepted the cable news networks’ invitation – is Oct. 23.
“Vice President Harris is ready for another opportunity to share a stage with Donald Trump, and she has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on October 23,” Harris’ spokesperson Jen O’Malley Dillion said in a statement.
“Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate. It is the same format and setup as the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules, and ratings,” Dillion said also.
As of this writing, Trump has not commented publicly about the proposed CNN debate. But he has consistently insisted he will not participate in further debates following the meeting in September, during which he ranted incoherently and repeatedly lost his composure. Since then, the consensus among viewers and pundits is that he lost badly.
Both widespread polling from CNN, MSNBC, Politico and even Fox News supported the idea that Trump was solidly defeated by Harris, despite his own claims to the contrary.
Apart from Harris and Trump, the debate was only attended by ABC’s moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis — a fact that Trump appeared to have forgotten by the time he visited Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld Wednesday. Trump complained that Muir and Davis “didn’t correct her once” and added, “And the audience was absolutely—they went crazy. I walked off, I said, ‘That was a great debate, I loved it.’”
Harris was praised for her performance at the debate, particularly her ability to repeatedly pivot to “things that drive Trump crazy” — such as his disappointing crowd sizes at recent campaign events.
MSNBC guest commentator Julie Roginsky said on Sept. 11, “This is a typical [attorney and Harris debate strategist] Karen Dunn strategy. You have to stick the landing. Kamala Harris stuck the landing. Issue after issue after issue, she did it by diverting attention from things that are not strengths of hers. When she talked about ‘Are you better off than four years ago?’ she immediately pivoted to talking about things that drive Trump crazy.”
“Whether it’s crowd size, whether it’s the fact that Republicans who he can’t stand are endorsing her, he immediately goes off on tangents because he’s so undisciplined,” Roginsky continued. “And anticipate any kind of question, because that’s what you do.”
Jon Stewart was more pointed: “Holy s–t. She crushed it,” he said during a live episode of “The Daily Show.” He added, “This is like one of those ‘Groundhog Day’ movies where you get to go back and fixed the bad way something happened earlier to the good way. And then you learn Italian and the piano, and then you get sad and despondent, and then you learn how to love yourself.”
Jimmy Kimmel also offered his own very specific take on the debate. “It was like watching the Lorax debate the Grinch tonight. Usually when Donald Trump gets a spanking like this from a woman it’s with a Forbes Magazine. Kamala was pushing his buttons like a 12-year-old playing ‘Fortnite,’” he told his audience.
Social media was also awash in rave reviews following Harris’ performance. The Vice President’s facial expressions were particularly inspiring. As Emily Favreau wrote on X, “She’s mastered the face of simultaneous pity and disgust and every woman knows that is *the* most important combo.”
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