Trump says he’ll be debating Harris ‘in the pretty near future’

Former President Trump said Wednesday he’ll debate Vice President Harris in the near future, suggesting the two sides could reach an agreement after Trump backed out of a planned ABC News debate.

“I hear she’s sort of a nasty person, but not a good debater,” Trump said on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends.” “But we’ll see because we’ll be debating her I guess in the pretty near future.”

“It’s going to be announced fairly soon. But we’ll be debating her. I would like to see it on Fox, by the way,” the former president added.

Trump indicated that other networks, such as NBC and CBS, have also been lobbying to host the event.

“I want to debate her. I think it’s important for the country that we debate,” the GOP nominee said. “Now where it is, I’m all for Fox. I think Fox would do a really good job. But two people have to agree.”

Trump over the weekend said his agreement to attend a Sept. 10 debate on ABC News had been “terminated.” He had previously agreed to debate President Biden then, but Biden has since dropped out of the race and has been replaced as the nominee by Harris.

The former president has also cited ongoing litigation against ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, though he had accepted the network as a host after filing the lawsuit.

Trump instead said he would be willing to attend a Sept. 4 debate in Pennsylvania hosted by Fox News with a full audience.

Harris’s team has called out Trump for backing out of the ABC News debate and has said the vice president intends to use that time to appear on the network regardless of whether he attends.

Trump had in recent weeks increasingly hedged about debating Harris, initially saying he would “absolutely” square off with the vice president but later saying he could think of reasons not to do so.