Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris plans to troll Donald Trump over his refusal to participate in a second debate during Saturday’s college football game between Alabama and Georgia.
During the game, which takes place in Tuscaloosa at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, the Harris campaign has arranged for a small plane to fly over pulling a banner that reads, “Trump’s Punting on a 2nd Debate.” Trump is scheduled to attend the match-up, which because of how it will affect standings in the SEC, is expected to be one of the highest-viewed games of the current season.
At the same time, the campaign will air a nationwide ad in which the same message will be repeated. “Winners never back down from a challenge,” the ad’s narrator says. “Champions know it’s any time, any place. But losers, they whine and waffle and take their ball home.”
Harris previously accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on Oct. 23 and subsequently challenged Trump to do the same. Hours later, Trump told a crowd of supporters in North Carolina that Harris “wants to do a debate right before the election with CNN because she’s losing badly.”
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.
CNN also reported Saturday that despite public proclamations to the contrary, Trump has “privately flirted with the idea of meeting Harris on the debate stage one more time.”
“Several of his advisers have argued that it could serve as a way to make his case to the American people that Harris has had more than four years in office to fulfill the campaign promises she’s making now, a message that some of Trump’s allies didn’t think he pushed hard enough when they debated earlier this month in Philadelphia,” the outlet added.