MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts have come out in defense of Vice President Kamala Harris for refusing to debate former president Donald Trump on Fox News, saying such a debate would be “rigged” in Trump’s favor.
The controversy comes after Trump refused to debate with Harris on ABC News on September 10th, despite previously agreeing to the debate when President Joe Biden was still running for re-election. Trump claimed he never agreed to debate with Harris on ABC, only Biden.
According to ABC News, the stipulations of the debate never previously mentioned any candidate by name, only stating that the participants will be nominees for president. Harris has said she will be at the September 10th debate whether Trump shows up or not.
Trump has now tried to turn the narrative in his favor by challenging the presumptive Democratic nominee to a debate on Fox News. Harris has not agreed to this debate, which Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Jonathan Lemire think she is well within her right to turn down.
Scarborough said on Monday’s (August 5) edition of Morning Joe, “[Trump] obviously is now proposing something that is no more likely for Kamala Harris to attend than than him attending something on MSNBC in prime time. It’s just not going to happen, which means he’s trying to figure out a way to get out of this debate gracefully and just not going to be able to do it.”
The long-time news anchor went on to say why would Harris show up for the debate when Fox News deliberately mispronounces her name.
“Again, and this is serious — they all deliberately mispronounce her name. Ka-MA-la. Repeatedly. All the hosts. KA-mala, KA-mala, KA-mala,” Scarborough stated.
“Some of them don’t do it on purpose, but there’s definitely like a kind of thing they’re doing there to make even her name seem different,” Brzezinksi responded.
Scarborough replied, “And it’d be like if MSNBC hosts said JD VEENCE, and would JD VEENCE want to go on a network that deliberately mispronounced JD VEENCE’s name.”
Lemire said that the idea of a Fox News debate would be “rigged” under Trump’s terms, saying, “The setting would be rigged. To your point, why would she go to Fox, which is still putting forth these bad-faith arguments?”
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However, Lemire noted that he believes Trump will ultimately agree to the ABC debate with Harris because he doesn’t have a choice.
“But I do think, especially if you’re Trump, my guess would be he will do this debate eventually for two reasons. One, I don’t think he could stand being called a coward if he actually does duck the debate with the Vice President,” Lemire explained.
He continued, “But secondly, if momentum continues this direction and Harris gets a boost from her running mate pick, gets a boost from a strong convention a couple of weeks from now. And we’ve heard from Karl Rove at the very top of the show, if she’s got momentum and got a lead, well, Trump’s going to need, he’s the one who’s going to need the debate in an effort to try to change the narrative of the race.”
Morning Joe, Weekdays, 6a/5c, MSNBC
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