Is Trump Afraid to Debate a Black Woman? Harris Supporters Think So

“Donald Trump has 99 problems, but he doesn’t want the Kamala Harris debate to be one of them,” said Antjuan Seawright, a longtime Democratic strategist.

In a post on Truth Social Sunday evening, Trump appeared to leave open the potential of withdrawing from ABC News’ scheduled September 10 debate with Harris, the newly crowned Democratic presidential candidate.

“Why would I debate Kamala Harris on this station?” he wrote Trump, who described ABC as a “biased” and “fake news” station.

Seawright said Trump’s recent statements, which have included conspiracy theories that the terms of the controversy were rigged to favor Harris, suggest he’s “scared” of the previous prosecutor.

Speaking about Harris’ perceived strength as a former state attorney general and district attorney in California, Seawright said, “Every time he’s had to face a prosecutor, he’s lost.” He added, “This isn’t going to end well for him, so he’s looking for a fallback that he can use, and this is just one tactic to do that.”

Additionally, Political reported Monday that the Trump campaign had denied the Harris campaign’s request to leave the microphones on throughout the 90-minute ABC debate broadcast.

When President Joe Biden was still atop the Democratic ticket, his campaign negotiated that microphones can be turned on for less than one candidate at a time. Biden’s team’s strategy was to minimize Trump’s ability to derail the controversy with outbursts and lies. But Harris’ campaign is taking a different approach.

“Trump’s advisers prefer a muted microphone because they believe their candidate is incapable of serving as president for 90 minutes on his own,” Harris campaign senior adviser Brian Fallon said.

On Monday, Trump appeared to distance himself from his own campaign, telling reporters that while the campaigns “agreed to the same rules,” it “doesn’t matter” to him whether the microphones stay on or not.

“I would have preferred it to be that way, but we agreed it would be the same as last time,” he said.

Seawright, a longtime senior adviser to the president’s kingpin, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-C., said Harris’ decision to ask for microphones to be unmuted is nice strategy for the vice chairman.

“She’s a different candidate than Joe Biden. She’s a different candidate with different qualities that she brings to the table and a different style,” he explained. “I think if that’s a negotiating point for her, then she should do it and stick to it.”

Seawright said that if Trump and his team are “confident” of their ability to perform well on the controversy stage, then “it doesn’t matter” what the parameters are.

“But he’s not cut out to talk about politics,” he added. “He’s built his political career on talking about theater and personality, and now this gives him the opportunity to let it run its course and confront him face to face.”

Cross said Trump has “no” capability for “self-policing” and that leaving the microphones on throughout the controversy would allow Harris to engage in “live fact-checking.”

“(That) wasn’t a skill in the first debate with Joe Biden,” she said, adding, “I don’t think there was an expectation that the majority of the fact-checking, or at least the speed at which it had to happen, was going to come from the moderators themselves.”

She also noted that given Trump’s penchant for making “negative” and “derogatory” comments about women, especially black women, having a hot mic would expose his racism and sexism. Last month, during an interview with black reporters on the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Trump infamously suggested that Harris, who’s of Indian and Jamaican descent, had “become” black.

“This is going to go downhill really fast because he can’t rise above it,” argued Cross, who noted that Trump’s rankings with women have continued to decline.

“He’s going to have a really tough time on the debate stage with someone who is much better at debating or wants to talk about policy,” Cross said, noting Harris’s policy rollout, which incorporates expanding the kid tax credit and housing policies to expand the center class.

She said of Trump: “There is nothing that meets the demands of this moment.”

Cross said that ultimately, regardless of the former president throws at Harris is not going to “move” the primary female vice chairman of the United States.

“She’s heard it all. She’s seen it all. There’s no level of racism that a black woman, a Southeast Asian woman, hasn’t heard in her rise and rise to where she is now,” Cross said.

“There’s nothing he can do to upset her, and I think he’s aware of that.”

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