Yes, but giving him a bold ultimatum would put it right there in his face. There’s two choices: Agree and capitulate, or refuse and show yourself a coward.
What could go wrong?
It already IS in his face.
That choice already IS on the table.
CNN issued the invitation to both of them. She accepted it. Let trump twist in the wind ALONE without her stepping into the picture and pulling public attention away from his pathetic, impotent loser stance. She doesn’t have anything to gain by interacting with him. Anything she says at this point opens her up to comment and criticism. She has the upper hand. No need to squander it by needlessly trying to improve it.
Yea, the media’s never learned how to thread the Trumpian needle: ignore him and you’ll be told that the media is biased and needs to cover him. Follow everything he blarts and you’re giving the baby the attention he wants. Tricky.
Strategically, if Vance shits the bed debating Walz I could see Trump wanting a chance to recover.
Does Trump have to decide whether to debate Harris before the VP debate on October first?
I’m guessing he can decide any g.d. time he wants to, and the waters will part for him. Like they always have. 
Trump won’t feel like a coward by not going. His supporters won’t think he’s a coward. Because it’s CNN. He can say he did two debates on liberal platforms now they are trying to have another debate on a third. And he has the built in excuse that voting has already started. I would say it’s about 70/30 he would agree to a Fox debate. 0% he’s going on CNN.
I just can’t anymore with this fucking guy. “Too late”? The final 2020 debate between him and Biden was October 22nd.
I’m actually starting to drift towards “maybe she should agree to debate on Fox (granted, not with Hannity, Watters, Ingraham, or Pirro moderating) so that the people who do only watch that network will see her dogwalk him”. And this time they won’t have the fall-back line of her magic wi-fi earrings.
But then I guess that gets back to the argument of “you don’t buy your 5 yr old the video game, even when he throws a temper tantrum on the floor at Walmart, because that means he ‘wins’, and knows how to ‘manipulate’ you the next time into giving him his way”.
I don’t see this as trump twisting in the wind. It’s his way of controlling the process. For him that’s what it’s all about, keeping control by stringing everyone along. He’s done it every time and everyone just follows right along. It’d be nice to see it handled differently . An ultimatum would put Harris in the driver seat this time. Plus it’d emphasize the “same old playbook” and we’re tired of it part of the Harris message.
But, yeah, it’s usually hard to argue against leaving well enough alone. The Harris campaign has been incredibly savvy so far, so however they handle it will probably be a good choice.
This is between trump and CNN. Harris is already in the driver’s seat of the vehicle SHE is driving.
Great. She’s been a candidate since July and the official nominee since August, and we’re already tired of the same old playbook. 
This.
I briefly wondered how the hell he can get away with saying that there’s no point to a debate because early voting has already started when there’s a VP debate on October 1 and Trump himself is still campaigning!
But then I remembered about Haitian immigrants eating their neighbours’ cats and dogs. Trump’s devoted MAGA followers believe it. They also believe he won the last debate, and would win the next one, too. As for “liberal platforms” and having a debate on Fox, if that possibility is offered they will also believe that every television network in the US is biased against Trump, and only Fox would be “fair”. They’re deluded cultists who have lost their minds and truly inhabit an alternate reality.
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The “same old playbook” is trump’s. That phrase has been a recurring Harris rejoinder when asked what she thinks about his crap.
But he denounces Fox on a semi-regular basis when they say something that isn’t fawning all over him. So who knows which Fox would show up that night?
It’s Fox News. That tells us all we need to know. The last time it was proposed that Fox host a presidential debate, the moderators were going to be Brett Baier and Martha MacCallum. Needless to say, both have shown right-wing bias. They wouldn’t be on Fox otherwise. The idea of letting Fox host a presidential debate, especially in this crazy political climate, is insane.
Harris should agree to debate Trump on any news channel he chooses: CNN, MSNBC, BBC News, Al Jazeera, whatever. But under no circumstances should she agree to a debate on Fox News (which has assured the courts multiple times that it is not a news channel), because they would do things like muting her mic even when it’s her turn to speak, and airing the debate on a delay so they could edit the responses to make Trump look better or Harris look worse.
I like the BBC idea.
True, but some Harris supporters (even on this board!) have criticized her for saying the same thing over and over again in the same words. Back in the day, candidates went from town to town repeating the same “stump speech” over and over but before instantaneous-all-over-the-world-and-outer-space reporting, it wasn’t so obvious.
No they wouldn’t. They would ask tough questions to Harris and less tough questions to Trump. They would attempt to fact check Harris live like Trump was on ABC. They would have a Trump friendly audience if allowed. Leaving the talking heads aside, the Fox News anchors still want to be considered as journalists. They wouldn’t be neutral but they wouldn’t be cartoonish.
But, of course, it’s not his supporters who are relevant. They didn’t think he was a coward when trying to drop out of the ABC debate. They completely bought into the transparent attempt to save face with a fake Fox News proposal. That didn’t mean that Trump didn’t eventually relent, after Kamala said she’d do the debate with or without him.
@PhillyGuy I was under the apparently mistaken impression that Harris’s team had talked to CNN about a second debate before the CNN invite. If indeed CNN did it on their own, then I withdraw the idea that she wants him to refuse.
But there is no way she didn’t already consider he would do so. So, if she doesn’t press him on it, then she does not think a debate is necessary.
I do wonder if CNN would be willing to still have it without Trump being there, or turn it into more of a town hall.
Doesn’t matter. A one sided townhall is a non-story unless she says something stupid. Few will watch and it will quickly be forgotten.
Given some of the ludicrous lies that Fox News has pushed, if there are still any people at Fox News who care about their reputation as journalists, they’re not the ones who are in control at the network. Real journalists don’t put graphs on the screen that show 8.1 as being a sharp uptick from 8.7. Real journalists don’t accidentally apply Photoshop filters to pictures of black people to accentuate racial features. Real journalists don’t make sex-crazed giant pandas their top story, when a former President’s home is raided by the FBI. Compared to the things that Fox News actually does, messing with a debater’s microphone would be small potatoes.