Republican Donald Trump has ruled out appearing at another debate with Democrat Kamala Harris two days after he delivered an uneven performance at their first showdown of the election cycle.
“THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!,” the former US president posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday, including in his tally the earlier debate with US President Joe Biden in June and his Tuesday showdown with Harris.
The Democratic candidate put Trump on the defensive in their ABC News-hosted clash, watched by 67 million people. Almost immediately, her campaign called for a second showdown.
True to form, Trump insists he won Tuesday’s clash with Harris and didn’t need to debate again. Yet a CNN snap poll of viewers said Harris performed better than Trump by 63 percent to 37, while a YouGov poll said Harris laid out a clearer plan by 43 to 32 percent.
Harris’ odds of winning the election in betting markets following the debate also rose.
“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH,’” Trump posted.
He attacked Harris and President Joe Biden over immigration and inflation in his post, saying those issues were “discussed in great detail during the First Debate with Joe, and the Second Debate with Comrade Harris.”
Biden dropped out of the race in July after a disastrous debate performance against Trump. Harris quickly replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Trump and allies have lashed out at the ABC News moderators who hosted Tuesday’s debate, saying they were biased in favour of Harris.
The moderators corrected on-air the former president’s false claims that immigrants were eating household pets in Ohio and that some states allow babies to be killed after birth. They did, however, let Trump respond more times than he was allowed too.
Trump on Wednesday said he was not inclined to debate Harris again, but floated the idea of another contest hosted by Fox News or NBC News.
Harris’ campaign has ruled out a forum with Fox News, a conservative outlet favourable to the former president.
Fiery debate
Harris put Trump on the defensive in their fiery televised debate, getting under her rival's skin as they battled for a breakthrough.
In a performance that earned her the endorsement of pop superstar Taylor Swift, the Democrat baited the "extreme" Republican into angry responses on issues ranging from abortion to democracy and foreign policy.
The 59-year-old vice-president managed to knock former president Trump off his game in their first and only scheduled showdown, which featured a series of bitter personal attacks on both sides.
With less than two months until election day, Harris was under pressure to deliver in front of an audience of tens of millions after her sudden rise to the top of the Democratic ticket.
She started on the front foot by surprising Trump by approaching him to shake his hand before they took to their lecterns – and then kept the upper hand.
Trump repeatedly raised his voice as he hit back at the vice-president on immigration and the economy, branding her a "Marxist" and blaming her for what he said were the failings of the Biden administration.
Harris responded by looking on in amusement before declaring that she represents a fresh start after the "mess" of the Trump presidency – and saying: "We're not going back."
One of their most intense exchanges was on abortion.
Trump insisted that while having pushed for the end of the federal right to abortion, he wanted individual states to make their own policy.
Harris said he was telling a "bunch of lies" and called his policies "insulting to the women of America."
Another jarring clash came as Trump doubled down on his unprecedented refusal to accept losing to Biden in the 2020 election, before trying to overturn the result.
Harris responded by mocking his catchphrase as a reality TV star, saying that Trump had been "fired by 81 million people" and calling him a threat to democracy.
The former prosecutor pointed out that Trump is a convicted felon, called him "extreme" and said it is "a tragedy" that throughout his career he had used "race to divide the American people."
Harris, who spent five days intensively preparing for the debate, repeatedly managed to needle Trump into finger-jabbing insults and meandering invective.
She elicited an angry response when mocked the size of his trademark rallies, one of his favourite topics, saying that attendees were leaving early out of "exhaustion and boredom."
He ended up talking at length about a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants have been eating local people's pet cats and dogs in Ohio – before being corrected by the moderator that authorities have said this didn't happen.
– TIMES/AFP/BLOOMBERG
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