George Stephanopoulos

On Thursday, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris agreed to debate September 10 on ABC. That’s good news for voters. They deserve to see and hear the two candidates contest the issues and explain their differences, unfiltered. The differences are dramatic. They need to be fleshed out, and they need pushback from the other side. In fact, voters deserve more than a single debate. They deserve two or three so the issues can be explored in depth, away from scripted speeches, advertising spin, and biased media coverage. The debates will be more valuable if they follow the model set by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who moderated the face-off in Atlanta between Trump and Joe Biden, then the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are at odds over where and when the pair will debate, with Trump rejecting a debate he had previously scheduled with President Joe Biden on September 10, hosted by ABC News. Instead, Trump says he will only debate Harris on September 4 in a debate hosted by Fox News: “I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all,” he wrote on Truth Social. Harris has accused Trump of “playing games” and is keen to stick with the ABC debate. Trump has given two reasons as to why the ABC debate is no longer on the table for him. First, he agreed to that debate with Biden, not Harris. Second, he is in active litigation against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos (or, as Trump calls him, “Slopadopoulos”).

The Democrats are not just caught between one dog and one hydrant. They are caught between three — and the water is coming down hard on their legs.  The first dog, obviously, is the president’s physical and mental condition and his status as the presumptive nominee who won near-unanimous support in the primaries and secured enough votes to win the nomination on the first ballot. Those victories leave Biden alone in charge of staying in the race. Others can pressure him, offer him carrots and sticks, but Biden and his family control the decision.  The second dog is Biden’s nearly impossible battle to recover public trust after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump. Voters simply don’t buy the White House explanation that it was “one bad night.

Joe Biden didn’t make any major mistakes in his Friday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. That’s the best you can say. He helped himself only because, after a dreadful week, he didn’t hurt himself. No hits, no runs, no errors.  Stephanopoulos concentrated almost entirely on two topics: Biden’s health and his dreadful poll numbers, which threaten not only Democratic control of the White House but also their chance to control the House or Senate. The best characterization of down-ballot Democrats today is “hair on fire.” Joe Biden’s interview didn’t douse the flames.