In your “no shit” story of the morning (well, second, if you count the Kremlin vouching for Bob Woodward’s reporting), CNN’s Brian Stelter on Wednesday noted in his daily newsletter that the Harris campaign confirmed to him on Tuesday that the vice president will be showing up for the debate they proposed on October 23rd, with spokesman Brian Fallon saying “Trump has ducked 60 Minutes and debates, and refused to release medical records” in the campaign’s closing weeks “as his speeches show him to be less and less stable,” after Stelter printed the network’s ultimatum.
We knew that because Harris already accepted when they first proposed it. They didn’t need to both-sides it. Possibly more interesting is the silence so far from convicted felon former President Trump and his team. Recall that in January it took less than an hour for large-headed spokesman Steven Cheung to respond to ABC News and its New Hampshire affiliate WMUR’s invite to a primary debate against Nikki “Birdbrain” Haley and heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Granite State with “There’s a debate?” and that was them just laughing off a pointless exhibition game in an race Trump already had locked. This time around it’s been nearly 24 hours since CNN again invited him to what would be a considerably more important and consequential showdown they still haven’t said anything in response to the Thursday noon deadline to accept.
Doesn’t mean they’re going to say anything at all. They might just continue to act like it didn’t happen right up until it expires. But the fact that there’s nothing yet could mean they’ll accept – or at the very least are coming up with all sorts of bullshit demands to “justify” saying no.