Key events
To be clear: Kamala Harris continues to want a second debate with Donald Trump.
“The vice-president is clear she believes there should be another debate and we do not consider this to be the last word from him,” Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Harris, told Politico. “He is just working through his feelings after losing very badly Tuesday night.”
Trump said he would do no such thing in a Truth Social post yesterday that involved a lot of capital letters:
Harris campaign slams Trump for dodging questions on abortion, Ukraine
In a memo released this morning, Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams said Donald Trump should be held accountable for his refusal to answer questions dealing with some of the thorniest issues the president faces at Tuesday’s debate.
Sams cited direct questions to Trump from the moderators about whether he would veto a national abortion ban, or if he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia – both queries to which the former president did not directly respond. Trump also restated his debunked belief that he won the 2020 election, and said that he would seek to repeal the Affordable Care Act, despite only having “concepts” of a plan to replace it.
“The debate was a mess for Trump, yes. But these answers are simply toxic. In almost any other circumstance, any one of these answers might drive days of a media crisis for the candidate. Taken together, they are an unmitigated disaster,” Sams wrote, adding, “Trump should have to answer for these positions.”
Perhaps he will, at his press conference set to take place at 12pm.
Harris seeks to drive home debate advantage after Trump declines to face off again
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump may have put the kibosh on another debate against Kamala Harris yesterday, but the vice-president isn’t letting the matter rest. Yesterday, Harris told a crowd in North Carolina that “I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate”, and this morning, her campaign released a memo blasting Trump for the “toxic positions” he took during their encounter, and saying he should respond to them – implicitly in the form of another debate against the vice-president. The Harris campaign has said it would be happy to participate in such an event next month, but that would require Trump to reverse his position. Expect the former president to elaborate on the subject around 12pm ET, when he holds a press conference in Los Angeles.
Here’s what else is going on today:
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Harris campaigns at 6.35pm ET in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the swing state that some believe will be the most important in deciding the outcome of this election.
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Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, is campaigning in the two other Great Lake swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin.
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Joe Biden welcomes the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to the White House at 4.30pm, for his first visit since taking office in July.
