by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 12, 2024) — At a rally in Tucson, AZ Thursday, 2024 Republican presidential candidate and 45th President Donald J. Trump announced “there would be no third debate” with his opponent.
He also posted his decision on his TruthSocial account.
On June 27, with CNN hosting, Trump debated then-Democrat presidential candidate and incumbent Joe Biden in Atlanta, which began a downward spiral for Biden and culminated in his withdrawal from the race on July 21.
On September 10, Trump debated Biden’s vice president and replacement nominee, Kamala Harris, hosted by ABC News.
Many say Harris “won” the exchange, but Trump also immediately claimed victory.
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” the following morning, Trump indicated he was disinclined to participate in a second debate with Harris and claimed her call to schedule one emanated from her “loss.”
Trump had been reluctant to accept ABC as the moderator since he has pending litigation against the outlet and one of its star personalities, Clinton White House adviser George Stephanopoulos.
An unvetted report posted on “X” Thursday claims an ABC “whistleblower” has produced an affidavit allegedly stating “the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked. Accordingly, the affidavit states several other factors that were built into the debate to give Kamala a significant advantage.”
According to the commenter, “Black Insurrectionist,” he will “be releasing the affidavit before the weekend is out.”
On September 4, Deadline posted an article bearing the headline, “Donald Trump Attacks ABC As Biased For Kamala Harris, Claims Dana Walden Will Provide Debate Questions In Advance Ahead Of Next Week’s Face-Off With VP.”
“It is true, the vice president and former Fox exec Walden have been friends for 30 years,” the co-authors wrote. “It is also true that over the years, Walden has donated to the Democrat’s [sic] campaigns. In fact, as recently as April 2022 Walden hosted a fundraiser for the Veep in her Brentwood home.”
The article continues:
[ABC parent company] Disney did not respond to requests for comment on the former president’s lashing out at Walden. However, the news unit has previously said that Walden has no impute on the direction of its coverage. “All editorial decisions are in the hands of ABC News management and the seasoned journalists and producers of ABC, who hold themselves to the highest journalistic standards,” the network said in a statement to The New York Times last month on any possibility of Walden leaning in corporately for her White House aspiring pal.
Still, not content to attack the unnamed Walden, Trump tonight went after her husband, producer Matt Walden too, and added an outlandish allegation as the cherry on the toxic cake.
Citing Walden’s over 40-year long friendship with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Trump then proclaimed that Waldens would make sure Harris had the upper hand in the David Muir and Linsey Davis moderated debate next week. “Her husband’s best friend is married to the head of the network, and they’re going to get the questions I’ve already heard,” he said, offering zero proof.
On March 4, 2017, Trump tweeted that his campaign had “wiretapped” by the Obama White House, after which he was accused, in as-yet uncorrected reports, of having made a “false” or “baseless” claim.
His statement was later proven correct by the results of a multi-year investigation by Special Counsel John Durham, who found the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” was launched without proper predication following surveillance of Trump-campaign advisers’ communications and movements.
Just after 7:30 p.m. EDT on TruthSocial Thursday, Trump opined on the speculation swirling that Harris received the debate questions in advance.
“People are saying that Comrade Kamala Harris had the questions from Fake News ABC,” Trump wrote. “I would say it is very likely. The two so-called ‘Anchors’ were a disgrace to Modern Day Journalism…”
On Thursday afternoon, Trump wrote, “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’ Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate.”
At approximately 4:30 p.m. EDT Thursday, JusttheNews.com reported that former Clinton pollster Mark Penn called for a probe “by an independent party” into ABC’s “internal texts and emails” to determine “to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate.”
On Thursday morning, a highly reliable source told this writer, “As someone who has had to prepare many times for debates, testimony, and trials, I can state emphatically that no one can answer that many questions that quickly without knowing the question and having a prepared answer.”