Trump’s Refusal to Face Even Fox News Anchors in Another Debate Shows He Knows He Lost — And Would Lose Again

Immediately following former President Donald Trump’s humiliating performance at Tuesday night’s debate, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign began lobbying for another one.

“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,” submitted Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon in a statement. “That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”

Trump, on the other hand, expressed his instinctive reticence to take the stage again to Fox News’ Sean Hannity. He couched it in his usual bravado — “If you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn’t do it. Why should I do another debate?” — but everyone watching at home intuitively understood the real reason for his reluctance.

And on Wednesday morning, he provided still more evidence of his insecurity.

During an interview with Trump on Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy noted that “that last night Fox News offered — sent letters to your campaign and her campaign offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha [MacCallum] and Bret [Baier]. One is October 9 in Arizona.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret. I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I’d love to have, frankly, Sean [Hannity] or Jesse [Watters] or Laura [Ingraham]. You know, somebody else,” replied Trump, denigrating two of the network’s most respected anchors and suggesting that one of its right-wing opinion hosts take the reins.

Trump knows as well as anyone that Jesse Watters is not going to moderate a presidential debate, so what’s the point in suggesting he should? It’s to create a permission structure for him to refuse to debate Harris again.

And not because he’s scared of Harris beating him, but because he knows he’s incapable of pulling himself together — even for 90 minutes.

The conspiratorial, highly-online brain worms that Trump has caught from the likes of Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, and JD Vance were out in force on Tuesday night. It is self-evidently the case that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis want Harris to prevail this November and were putting their thumbs on the scale to help her at the debate. It’s a mar on both of their reputations, but contrary to what many conservatives are peddling today, their meddling is not why last night was so devastating for Trump.

He alone was the architect of his self-destruction. Instead of tying Harris to the cost-of-living crisis she and her boss denied and then poured gasoline on, Trump railed about Haitian immigrants “eating pets” in Springfield, Ohio. Instead of drawing a stark contrast with Harris’s abysmal foreign policy instincts, Trump refused to straightforwardly express his support for Ukraine in order to appease the GOP’s fringy pro-Russia faction. Instead of staying focused on the future, he made a point of continuing to deny the results of the 2020 election and of championing the cause of Ashli Babbitt, who died as a direct consequence of the lies he told. Instead of appealing to everyday Americans’ interests, he appealed to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ego.

After President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in his showdown with Trump in June, even he and his surrogates were willing to admit that it wasn’t his best night. Trump’s self-conception won’t allow for that kind of honesty, but deep down he knows that he lost last night — and that he would lose the next one, too.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.