Kellyanne Conway hopes vice presidential debate pushes Trump to face off with Harris again

Former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has faith that former President Donald Trump isn’t “totally” ruling out a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Conway argued Trump wouldn’t want his running mate’s Tuesday debate against Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to “be the last word of presidential debates of this season” as she pushed her one-time boss to agree to another face-off with Harris.

“I know you, and I just believe when you see the end of that debate–are you going to let that be the last word of presidential debates of this season? End of your career? Or are you going to want one more?” she asked during an interview with Trump on Monday morning.

Her question anticipated Sen. J.D. Vance's (R-OH) CBS debate with Walz.

The former president replied that he’d “rather have another one” but worried that “we're so far down the line.” With just over a month until Election Day, he said “it's late" to schedule another debate.

Conway continued to press him, using a sports analogy to whet Trump’s competitive appetite.

“You've had seven of these debates, and I feel like you're Shohei Ohtani. I feel like you can pitch, you can, you can bat,” she said in a reference to the designated hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who recently won the National League Player of the Month for September.

“I told him, you’re like Shohei Ohtani, you’re pitching, you’re batting. You’ve done seven of them. She’s [Harris] 1 for 1 — big deal,” Conway explained later to Fox News host Jesse Watters.

Trump responded that he thought the ABC moderators for the first presidential debate were biased against him, but he still seemed to leave the door open to future debates.

“I don't think you can get a fair shake. But even if you didn't, I would love to have two or three more debates,” he said.

Commenting on her interview later in the day with Watters, Conway said she thought she heard an opening in the president’s remarks.

“He had said no, but he didn’t say totally no,” Conway reflected.

Trump previously debated Harris for the first time on Sept. 10, after which he argued against doing a second debate because he said moderators had treated him unfairly by fact-checking him multiple times throughout the debate while giving Harris a relatively free pass.

Still, influential advisers, such as Conway, have urged him to give debates another go.

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"People just want to hear. I think that last 5% that is decisive but elusive right now — maybe wants to see the two of you together," she said Monday.

Conway worked closely with Trump for three years during his first term in the White House before retiring from her role as counselor to the president in Aug. 2020.