Trump campaign mocks Biden uncertainty amid VP debate talks

MILWAUKEE — Weeks after President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump 's debate upended the incumbent's 2024 campaign , their vice presidential nominees are now negotiating the terms of their own debate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who will accept the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination at the GOP convention Wednesday in Milwaukee, spoke on the phone this week after Trump announced the senator as his running mate. Although readouts of their discussion described their conversation as cordial, the principals and their aides have yet to agree on a debate date.

“We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for Vice President is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before their convention," Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes wrote in a statement. "To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom , JB Pritzker , Gretchen Whitmer , or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate."

Brian Fallon, Harris's campaign spokesman, snapped back on social media, amplifying the Biden team's message of the day regarding the Republican convention's platform position on abortion access.

"Maybe this is why Vance just rejected a debate against the Vice President," Fallon wrote on X.

In a longer official statement, Fallon added Trump "is the one whose campaign said he would debate 'anytime, anyplace'" and who tapped Vance "specifically for his debating skills.

“Now suddenly right after a damning new leak showing his support for a nationwide abortion ban, Vance is backing off a debate against Vice President Harris, who has spent the last two years prosecuting the case on behalf of  reproductive freedom," he wrote. “This debate has been discussed for two months now. If J.D. Vance is unwilling to defend the Trump-Vance record on the debate stage, he should just say so.”

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Their debate negotiations could set the tone for the rest of their respective campaigns.

After the Biden and Trump campaigns agreed on the presidential debate dates of June 27 on CNN and Sept. 10 on ABC, a vice presidential debate was proposed on CBS on July 27, Aug. 13, or Aug. 14.