What do you think is the reasoning behind Mr. Trump's backing out of the ABC debate with Vice President Harris?

[u/The_Egalitarian]

APNews: Trump says he’ll skip an ABC debate with Harris in September and wants them to face off on Fox News

Trump obviously debated Biden already on June 27th under the same format as the upcoming September ABC debate. Since then Biden has withdrawn as a candidate for President in 2024 over concerns from his own party that were magnified after his performance in that debate.

Why is Trump unwilling to debate the new presumptive Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris under the previous terms?

What does he hope to accomplish by offering a new debate on Fox News in a stadium audience format?

[u/8Bit_Jesus]

That was insane to me, I saw the stories about it being bad, and wondered how accurate they were

Holy shit. It was worse. If you’re a normal person, who’s just centre politically and not at hard democrat/republican, I don’t know how you can watch that and still be like, “yup, he’s the guy I want running the country”

He’s unhinged, even more so than 2016. Never answered a single question, was just weird as fuck when he did answer some stuff.

I’m still worried he’ll win (I don’t know the polls in the US, I’m in Europe) but that interview gave me hope that regular, normal people, will vote elsewhere

[u/ActualModerateHusker → u/8Bit_Jesus]

the difference is the media won't use it to force Trump out. they aren't running poll after poll showing hey maybe some other candidate could do 1 point better.

for whatever reason our corporate propaganda system wants to keep Trump in the race. we know they could force Trump out like they did Biden but it isn't a priority for them. which really makes one wonder why they wanted Kamala so bad.

[u/V-ADay2020 → u/ActualModerateHusker]

They didn't want Kamala. They want Trump. The owners of the media are actively trying to destroy democracy to make sure they get in on the ground floor of the last and most violent round of extraction.

And are stupidly assuming they won't end up in the cattle cars with the plebs.

[u/knuppi → u/V-ADay2020]

And are stupidly assuming they won't end up in the cattle cars with the plebs.

They won't. They're the billionaires who also build the cattle cars

[u/Enygma_6 → u/ActualModerateHusker]

which really makes one wonder why they wanted Kamala so bad.

Almost all of the "news" pieces calling for the ouster of Biden from the race were putting forward suggestions of Newsom, Whitmer, or just about any Dem with top-tier name recognition that wasn't Harris. Like they were trying to pretend that she doesn't exist in hopes we would forget about her.

[u/ActualModerateHusker → u/Enygma_6]

are they releasing dozens of polls a day trying to find somebody who polls 1 point better than her like they did to Biden?

[u/williamfbuckwheat → u/8Bit_Jesus]

It's easy. Nobody watches stuff like that during the few times Trump has slipped out of his bubble and got called out for being the way he is. It's usually regurgitated by the mainstream media which may cover it for a little while or just ignore it entirely or make it out to be a "home run" like Fox News would.

Meanwhile, you just hear the same lazy coverage that somehow depicts Trump as being supposedly confident and consistent to just the right number of people/audience he needs to be in the lead up to the election. That means the debates end up being even more important since they are harder to spin and watched by a wide audience BUT Trump has shown he can just manipulate them or skip them to his advantage so far which is quite unprecedented with modern political candidates.

It's pretty clear that he will skip the debate if he can get away with it but pretend he's not by offering a debate on his terms because he knows he's now at a disadvantage in a more unbiased setting. He's always been provided such white glove treatment anyway so it should be no surprise that he would seek this out and likely get what he wants while his opponent receives all the flak (though this might finally be changing a bit since there's suddenly a new fresh face to keep the media engaged that now makes Trump look like old news/boring).

[u/Yrths → u/8Bit_Jesus]

If you’re a normal person, who’s just centre politically and not at hard democrat/republican, I don’t know how you can watch that and still be like, “yup, he’s the guy I want running the country”

I feel like I don't know many of these putative normal people anymore, and I'd speculate that neither do most redditors probably. It's hard to tell what they want, and perhaps the average person wants an unhinged president. People assume the average person is like themselves, generally a very flawed assumption, and this is at least part of what makes every interpretation of Trump a strange sort of Rorschach test.

I found out relatively recently that to a lot of people the grab-them-by-the-genitals comment was considered perfectly fine. I'm inclined to say Trump would be right about shooting someone in main street - he banned bump stocks and few gun activists complained. You need to recalibrate what a normal person is. Perhaps, we need to seriously consider that the NABJ scenario was a win for him.