With Democrats expected name Kamala Harris as the party's presidential nominee, new plans are taking shape for a debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump in September.
Fox News has invited the Trump and Harris campaigns to commit to a Sept. 17 debate that would be held in Pennsylvania at a location still to be announced, Politico reported Wednesday.
Prior to President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race, he and Trump had been scheduled to debate each other a second time on ABC News on Sept. 10. Trump said Tuesday that he is willing to debate Harris at least once and possibly a second time, but that he now has issues with doing so on ABC News.
"I’m not thrilled with ABC," Trump said during a Tuesday conference with reporters, calling the network "fake news." "I guess they committed but I have at least equal say, and I don’t like the idea of ABC."
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday that he wanted Fox News to host a debate.
Fox News reportedly extended the invitation to both campaigns to work out details about the location, time, date and format of a debate — including whether there would be an audience. In a letter sent to the campaigns, Fox News executives suggested that hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum would likely be chosen to moderate the debate.
Harris previously had agreed to a vice presidential debate with JD Vance that would have taken place on CBS News either on July 23 or Aug. 13. Those plans were scrapped when Biden dropped out of the race, a move that was precipitated by his disastrous performance in his CNN debate with Trump on June 27.
It's unknown whether a vice presidential debate will take place. The Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago from Aug. 19-22. The party's choice of a vice presidential candidate — potentially Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — may not come until that time.
A debate in Pennsylvania would hold added significance after Trump was shot in an attempted assassination at a campaign rally in Butler Township, north of Pittsburgh, earlier this month.
The last presidential debate to be held in Pennsylvania was at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre in September 1976, when incumbent Republican Gerald Ford debated Democrat Jimmy Carter, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara. A vice presidential debate was held in the city in 1984 and Philadelphia also hosted Democratic primary debates in 2008. Biden held a town hall meeting with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News at the National Constitution Center in 2020.