Donald Trump suggests backing out of ABC debate in Philadelphia in late-night Truth Social post

Former President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night he could skip out on the ABC presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Hours after a Sunday morning ABC News interview between anchor Jonathan Karl and Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Trump took to Truth Social to ruminate on the planned debate. He wrote the interview was “ridiculous and biased” and questioned “why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?”

He went on to question whether the debate would be moderated fairly and raised other issues such as Harris’ friendship with Dana Walden, a Disney executive, and whether anchor George Stephanopoulos, who Trump has ongoing litigation against, would be involved. (ABC has said anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate, not Stephanopoulos).

“Where is Liddle’ George Slopadopolus hanging out now? Will he be involved. They’ve got a lot of questions to answer!!!” Trump wrote.

Trump’s hint at a possible debate no-show marks another turn in the will-they-won’t-they drama leading up to the first time that Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump are expected to go head-to-head on the presidential debate stage next month in Philadelphia.

The former president initially pulled out of the ABC debate citing his legal conflicts with ABC and President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June led to the downfall of his reelection bid, resulting in Harris’ ascension as the nominee.

Eventually, Trump recommitted to the Sept. 10 debate against Harris during a falsehood-riddled news conference earlier this month at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida golf club and residence. He also continued to promote a Sept. 4 Fox News debate, and proposed another: Sept. 25 on NBC. Trump pushed for Harris’ acceptance of the debates again on Truth Social Sunday night.

The Harris campaign told ABC News earlier this month she would not debate Trump on Sept. 4 on Fox and any future debates are contingent on the former president showing up to the Sept. 10 event, adding that she’s willing to discuss any future dates.

There also appears to be a dispute between the two campaigns on whether to mute the microphones during debates.

The Harris campaign told ABC and any other networks seeking to hold a debate in October that both candidates’ microphones should stay live for the duration of the event, Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement.

“The Vice President is ready to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time. Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button,” Fallon said.

A source told CNN that Trump’s campaign wants the mics to be muted, a change in tune from the 2020 presidential debate when the Trump campaign advocated for them to be left on. Trump himself appears to be indifferent to the mic issue. “We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted,” the former president told NBC News Monday.

Jason Miller, Trump senior adviser, told Politico Playbook the Trump campaign “accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate.”

However, Harris did not accept the rules of the CNN debate because she was not the presidential candidate at the time. Trump also wanted to stray from the CNN rules in his proposed Sept. 4 Fox News debate, which he wanted to take place in an arena with a live audience.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of Trump’s participation in the debate.

Harris’ team is taking a different approach to the mics than the Biden campaign, which wanted them muted except for when a candidate was speaking.