Does Trump really want his VP to have the final debate word this election?

Analysis by Brian Stelter, CNN

New York (CNN) — Does Donald Trump really want his running mate, JD Vance, to have the final debating word this fall? Or does Trump want that opportunity for himself?

That’s one of the questions now on the table after Vice President Kamala Harris challenged Trump on Saturday to a second debate hosted by CNN next month.

The only remaining agreed-to debate of this presidential election season is the October 1 face-off between the vice presidential nominees, Vance and Tim Walz.

CBS is hosting the VP debate and allowing other networks to simulcast the matchup, just as CNN did in June and ABC did earlier this month. The contrasts between Walz, 60, and Vance, 40, are sure to be fascinating.

But historically the VP debate has never been the last in an election cycle, with the running mates usually sandwiched in between debates between the candidates at the top of the ticket.

Of course, this year’s election cycle has been unusual for many reasons, including the earliest general election debate between President Joe Biden and Trump, and the late ascension of Harris as the nominee.

But it sure would seem anticlimactic to have Walz and Vance helm the last debate of the cycle.

Multiple television networks have jockeyed to hold additional presidential debates this fall. The Harris campaign signaled that it would be interested, but only after the VP debate.

CNN has offered to host Harris and Trump on October 23 in Atlanta, the site of the Biden-Trump matchup in June. (Trump has said he won that debate, and Biden withdrew from the race three weeks later, so a return to the Atlanta studio might be enticing for him.)

On Saturday afternoon, Harris publicly agreed to participate on October 23, and encouraged Trump to join her.

Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement that “Trump should have no problem agreeing” since “it is the same format and setup as the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules, and ratings.”

NBC, the biggest broadcast network that has yet to hold a debate this year, has also been keen to host Harris and Trump. Harris aides may have calculated that Trump would be more likely to agree to CNN’s event.

But the Trump campaign quickly responded Saturday by reiterating the Republican’s declaration that there would not be another debate, pointing to his social media post last week that read, “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!”

At a rally Saturday afternoon, Trump claimed October 23 is “just too late” because “voting has already started.”

But as political scientist Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, observed on X, people who vote weeks early are mainly “voters who were probably unmovable.” A debate closer to Election Day “could sway the small % of undecideds plus motivate (or de-motivate) many on both sides.”

The final presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle was held on October 22.

Still, Trump cares deeply about television ratings, so one has to wonder if he will really pass up a chance to reach 60 million to 80 million viewers one more time before Election Day.

The first two presidential debates this year were indisputably valuable to the tens of millions of voters who tuned in.

Americans would benefit from another debate, CNN said in a statement on Saturday, because the public would “hear more from these candidates as they make their final decision.”

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