This is a far better option. Holding a debate without the other candidate is fodder for Trump to do the same on ONN or Fox News. But holding a town hall and inviting Trump as an optional attendee would create engagement, and either Trump will ignore it, join the same one, or hold his own and most likely screw up his own.
She needs to still show up as scheduled, say that just because trump won't make time for the American people doesn't mean she will ignore them
That reminds of the 2020 presidential election in Poland when both candidates did exactly what you describe - they debated at the same time but in separate studios. And the story how it came to that is wild.
This was after the first round of the elections (where two candidates are selected for the second round), which involved things like last-minute rescheduling of the elections, last-minute candidate swap and effectively throwing away 20 million dollars of public money. Currently there are several criminal investigations conducted against people involved in organisation of that first round. And of course it was all in the middle of the pandemic. So the political chaos was at its absolute peak.
The two candidates were the country's president representing then ruling party and capital city's mayor representing then biggest opposition party. Both of course wanted the debate. The issue was that then ruling party turned the public broadcaster into a party propaganda machine compared by experts to that created by Goebbels. And the core of that propaganda was that the second biggest (private) broadcaster in Poland (owned by Discovery Group) is anti-Polish and cannot be trusted.
Both broadcasters offered they can organise the debate. The private one I believe was also willing to jointly host it. But the ruling party candidate couldn't agree to a debate hosted by the private broadcaster because that would significantly impact the propaganda and expose his many wrongdoings to the manipulated ruling party voters.
On the other hand, the opposition candidate couldn't agree for the debate hosted only by the public broadcaster because that would effectively be 2 hours of him trying to deny lies spread by hosts and the other candidate.
The 2nd round was coming close and no compromise has been found. So on the same day the two broadcasters prepared their studios for two candidates with audience. Ruling party candidate went to public broadcaster, opposition candidate to private one. Both declared the other as a "no-show" and proceeded to have a "debate" with hosts and audience.
Few days later the opposition candidate lost by a small margin.
I agree. Trump did a townhall when Harris didn't show up to the first proposed the debate, she should do a townhall to replace the next one if Trump ultimately does not show. It'd be a great way to quell complaints that she is afraid of speaking to the media or press as well.
Back before the 2016 Conventions Trump challenged Bernie Sanders to a debate. Bernie jumped at the chance and Cadet Bonespurs had to run away from his own challenge.
Bernie can control a room on power of pure charisma, force of personality and personal authority in a way few people are capable of. Just watch his Fox News town hall.
Brave Sir Donald ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Donald turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Donald!
I've watched that movie too many times. I was about to comment "The line is supposed to be 'Tommy' since he's talking to Tommy, The Tit"... Oh wait, it says Donny because Trump... Yeah.
Not really. It was always her tactic to make him go nuts. Provoking him into shouting over her would have gone along with that and just made him look bad.
I think it would have been a smart choice. The rationale behind muting was trying to force both parties to having a nice, civil discussion, to force decorum upon the proceedings that formerly was just a given, but generally not respected by Trump, by his nature.
However one part of the first debate was that the muting might have saved Trump from his own worst impulses. To be sure, Biden made his own problems that were far far worse, but part of Trump looking relatively reasonable in his conduct that night was being forced only to speak in turn.
Slam dunk is if you let him put his unhinged nature and unreasonable behavior on full display, while also managing to manage him so that you are still heard.
I would not be surprised if a career in the courtroom dealing with all manner of hard to deal with people is the best prep anyone could ask for to deal with a personality like Trump.
Since there’s not enough time left for him to recover from this brutal ego bruise, I predict he’ll only do rallies from now on, or appearances on far-right media, because he’ll retreat to his snowglobe for reassurance for a while. He’ll avoid addressing Kamala directly, but he’ll ramp up his own network and rile up his mob. His team will struggle to rein him in, and some appearances might be cancelled.
e: once he gets tired of being reassured, he’ll double-down on the unhinged scale
This would be a good time for Kamala to keep asking for a debate and challenging him. Maybe even agree to do it on Fox to show how weak he is. Even if he accepted, I don’t think Fox would save him from another bad performance. We’ll see how polling works out I guess.
Trump’s campaign manager, using Trump’s phone: “yes this is definitely Donald Trump bigly president please cancel my appointment of debate thank you bye”
Project chickens onto Trump tower. It'll hit the news, he'll see it, and it'll push him into another debate. His people can't control him. The might be able to manipulate him to some extent (e.g., "you don't need to debate again, you won. What else is there to say/do? All you could do is lose. Leave it on the W."). So, if you goad him enough, hell agree to another one.
Trump's advisors were reaching for any reason to convince him he won, because they know how disastrous another debate would be.
Not to worry, we will be entertained by the Walz-Vance faceoff, though I'll admit giving TFG the talking to he's deserved since forever ago was immensely gratifying.
His plan is to run like a coward. Remember when in the first election there were hints that he was "trying to lose" to not even be president? Now that is completely gone and it's wild.
I don't think Trump even wants to be president. He just wants to stay out of prison.
Though the guy is so amazingly self centered and delusional, I'm convinced that we could do a Truman Show thing and tell him he won and build a White House set for him and have him "be" president.
Well, as he said, he certainly won the first one. I don't know why he wouldn't wanna keep racking up wins. Unless, maybe he's embarrassed to have been manipulated right… the fuck over… by… a… woman.
I say this is the best outcome. Keep the absolute disaster of a debate the biggest thing people think about when they compare the two candidates for as long as possible.
Still the Vance-Walz debate Oct 1 for some potential change for either candidacy. Voters think they know both VP picks but we won't really know who we're dealing with til they go head to head.