CNN Guest Defends Trump On Narrative He ‘Agreed’ to ABC Debate With Harris: ‘Joe Biden Should Come and Debate’
Republican strategist Alex Vogel defended former President Donald Trump on CNN Saturday on a specific point about Trump’s cancellation of a September debate on ABC News that was previously agreed upon by him and President Joe Biden.
Vogel argued the debate had been put on the books by a completely different campaign and that Biden canceled it when he ended his reelection bid, and therefore he’s not cancelling a debate with Harris.
Biden exited the race two weeks ago after his debate performance against Trump in June led to calls from within his own party for him to step down. As the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris has since called on Trump to debate her on ABC on Sept. 10.
Trump announced in a Truth Social post that he would not attend the forum and instead claimed he’d “agreed” with Fox News on a Sept. 4 debate.
The Harris campaign put out a response saying Trump is “running scared” from facing Harris, and Democrats quickly began to spread the word “coward” on social media. The Vice President eventually posted on her own X/Twitter account taunting Trump.
It’s interesting how “any time, any place” becomes “one specific time, one specific safe space.”
I’ll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to. I hope to see him there. https://t.co/zqng89X8QD
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 3, 2024
Trump retaliated with a second Truth Social post saying Harris doesn’t have the “mental capacity” to debate him.
On CNN Saturday, Vogel joined anchor Jim Sciutto and Democratic Party strategist Maria Cardona to discuss the back-and-forth between the two sides.
Cardona’s position was that Trump had agreed to debate the Democratic nominee and that he should square off against Harris. Vogel disagreed:
Number one, it’s important to remember. We had a Biden campaign and a Trump campaign. And for the first time in American history, we had a presidential campaign go blue screen of death. Literally, completely brick and meltdown and the party, on a dime. has said we’re going to anoint somebody new.
[…]
It’s a different campaign, it’s a completely different dynamic that therefore, let’s have a conversation about how to debate/ The American people deserve frankly, to be introduced to [Harris].
Vogel said Harris had struggled in several 2020 Democratic Primary debates before she ultimately dropped out of the race and argued he believed Trump would like to debate her.
While referring to the ABC debate Cardona asked, “Why not just keep it? That’s what they agreed to.”
Vogel fired back, “That’s what who agreed to? No. That’s what Joe Biden agreed to. Joe Biden should come and debate.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
