Trump dismisses CNN debate against Harris, citing early voting

Earlier in the day, Harris’ campaign said it had accepted an invitation from CNN to participate in an Oct. 23 debate. It would have been the candidates’ second debate, following a Sept. 10 meeting that most pundits said he won.

“The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their votes,” her campaign chairman, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said in a statement.

“I hope (Trump) joins me,” Harris posted on X.

Trump said during a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina that he would like to debate — calling it “good entertainment value” — but the start of early voting in some states has put the wind out of the idea.

“It’s too late, the voting has already started,” he said.

He added, to a large and enthusiastic crowd of supporters, that while CNN was “very fair” when it debated President Joe Biden in June, “they’re not going to be fair again.”

Vice President Harris replaced his boss at the top of the Democratic ticket after the 81-year-old Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump.

His exit from the race left Trump, 78, now the oldest presidential candidate, against a much younger Harris, 59.

Voting in progress

Saturday’s announcement came as some states have already begun early voting in what is an agonizingly close race.

The outcome is expected to hinge on seven battleground states, including North Carolina.

Trump addressed the crowd in the port city of Wilmington from behind bulletproof glass, following an apparent second assassination attempt against him.

A gunman was discovered on his golf course in Florida last Sunday, with security guards foiling any plans to harm the former president.

In July, Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop. The US Secret Service – tasked with protecting the candidate – admitted on Friday to “deficiencies” and “complacency” in the shocking security breach.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric

Trump won North Carolina in the 2020 election against Biden.

But Harris aims to flip the southeastern state for Democrats, building on her support from African-Americans and young voters.

Trump’s speech on Saturday reinforced the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become a central element of his campaign, falsely claiming that migrants were “attacking villages and towns across the Midwest.”

He also promised the crowd that the United States would “get to Mars before the end of my term.”

The former president is facing a new challenge in North Carolina after a bombshell report Thursday revealed that Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate Trump endorsed, called himself a “black Nazi” and made other inflammatory comments on a message from the porn site. board more than a decade ago.

Robinson denounced the CNN report as “salacious tabloid lies.”

The presidential race remains day-to-day and every vote will count in the election, the result of which Trump once again refused to say he would accept if he lost.

Trump faces criminal charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 outcome, after his supporters violently took over the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.