Harris-Waltz communications director Michael Tyler said Sunday that the American people “deserve a second debate” and suggested he was “confident” a debate would take place.
During an interview on Fox News' Media Buzz, host Howard Kurtz confronted Tyler about his skepticism about former President Trump's claim that he won't be going to any more debates, asking, “Why do you think he'd change his mind?”
“Yeah, that's what he said obviously after the debate,” Tyler said of Trump's decision to decline to participate in the next debate, “but I think he's started to muddy the waters a little bit since then.”
“The vice president has made it very clear that she believes the American people deserve a chance to see again what they saw on Tuesday night, yes, a clear contrast of vision between her wanting to move this country forward and Donald Trump wanting to take us backwards through his extreme Project 2025 policies,” Tyler continued.
“Obviously, they're tackling right now, but at the end of the day, we believe the American people deserve a second debate and we're confident that will happen in October,” he added.
President Trump said Thursday that he would no longer participate in debates with Vice President Harris.
“When a professional boxer loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, 'I want a rematch,'” Trump wrote on Truth Social, claiming he won Tuesday's debate with Harris despite some polls suggesting the opposite.
During the debate between Trump and Harris last week, Harris repeatedly tried to get on Trump's nerves, often with success, as Trump went off on tangents about crowd sizes, President Biden and conspiracy theories about immigrants kidnapping pets in an Ohio town.
Harris' campaign almost immediately called for a second debate between the two candidates, although Trump was equivocal, suggesting he had no intention of holding another debate.
The former president accepted a Fox News debate in early September and an NBC debate in late September when Biden was the Democratic nominee. Harris' campaign said a second debate was contingent on both candidates participating in last week's debate hosted by ABC News.
