Trump campaign trolls Biden over VP debate

Debating Kamala Harris would be unfair to her running mate, the Republicans said

There can be no vice-presidential debate until the Democrats can decide on their ticket, the Republican campaign said on Wednesday, in a thinly veiled reference to calls for US President Joe Biden to step down.

The Republicans formally nominated former President Donald Trump on Monday, while he announced Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vice President Kamala Harris reached out to Vance with an offer of a debate, to be hosted by CBS News.

“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 said in a statement on Wednesday evening. “To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitener, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.”

The governors of California, Illinois and Michigan, respectively, have been floated as possible replacements for Harris should Biden withdraw from the ticket.

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Many Democrats have been clamoring for the 81-year-old to do so, since his disastrous showing in the June 27 debate against Trump. California Congressman Adam Schiff, formerly a key player in the House Intelligence Committee, was the latest to urge Biden to “pass the torch.”

While Biden has refused to drop out of the race – or resign from the presidency – in a recorded interview aired on Wednesday he revealed the circumstances under which he might do so.

“If I had some medical condition that emerged,” this might make him reconsider, Biden told BET. He insisted he was still fit for the job, however.

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Speculations about ousting Biden from the ticket were temporarily relegated from the headlines by the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday. The Republican candidate narrowly escaped death at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The US Secret Service has yet to give a satisfactory explanation how a shooter was able to get into position to open fire on the stage, killing one rally-goer and seriously injuring two more.

However, efforts by some Democrats to oust the president have apparently continued, with the New York Times claiming on Wednesday that a group of Democrat megadonors were “dangling money to members of Congress” willing to publicly call on Biden to step aside. 

Harris has proposed three dates for the VP debates: July 23, August 12 and August 13. The  Democrats are scheduled to hold their convention in Chicago on August 19, but want to nominate Biden via a “virtual roll call” before then.