Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted three dates for a vice presidential debate against Republican candidate JD Vance, a Biden-Harris campaign official told Spectrum News.
But the Trump campaign says they won't commit the Ohio senator to the debate, arguing that with President Joe Biden's future on the ticket in dispute -- California Rep. Adam Schiff became the latest major Democrat to call for him to step aside on Wednesday -- they can't agree to a debate without knowing who Vance's opponent will be, despite Biden's repeated insistence he is staying in the race.
“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. To do so would be unfair to [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom, [Illinois Gov.] JB Pritzker, [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.” Trump Campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Newsom, Pritzker and Whitmer are all popular figures in the Democratic Party and oft-discussed candidates to help lead the party in a post-Biden era.
That trio of governors, as well as Harris, continue to support Biden publicly.
Harris agreed to the debate, set to be hosted by CBS News, in May, long before Vance was named to the ticket. Per the campaign official, Harris accepted two possible dates at the time: July 23 and Aug. 13. She has since agreed to Aug. 12 as well.
"Now that the Trump campaign has selected a running mate, we encourage them to agree to a debate between Vice President Harris and Senator Vance," the official added.
Harris and Vance had their first conversation on Tuesday after the Ohio senator was tapped by Trump to join the ticket on Monday, but they did not settle on terms for a debate, sources familiar told The Associated Press.
In an interview on Newsmax on Tuesday, Vance said that "obviously, we want to debate Vice President Harris because it’s important for the American people to see the contrast."
Harris, in her congratulatory voicemail to Vance on his selection on Monday, urged him to accept the CBS debate, one of the people familiar with the discussions told the AP. Vance returned Harris’ call on Tuesday and the pair exchanged pleasantries, that person said. A second person told the outlet said they shared a desire to debate, but didn’t discuss specifics.
Vance is set to headline the third day of the RNC on Wednesday. In a video released earlier Wednesday ahead of his speech, Harris called Vance a "rubber stamp" for Trump.
“Make no mistake: J.D. Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country,” the vice president says in the video.
She goes on to say that Vance would have gone along with Trump’s wishes for his vice president to refuse to certify President Joe Biden’s election win in 2020, making a distinction between him and Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence.
“And unlike Mike Pence, Vance said he would have carried out Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 election,” Harris said in the video.
Then-Vice President Pence certified the results despite pressure from allies of the former president. Earlier this year, Vance told ABC News in an interview that he “would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.”
Harris also called Vance a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s agenda, criticizing him for his views on abortion and in-vitro fertilization and accusing him of wanting to target programs like Head Start, focused on early learning and development, and Medicare.
“But we are not going to let that happen,” the vice president's message concluded.
Spectrum News' Taylor Popielarz, Maddie Gannon, Joseph Konig and The Associated Press contributed to this report.