The Harris campaign said the candidates agreed to three debates, one on Sept. 10, a second on Oct. 1 (between the vice presidential candidates) and a third between Harris and Trump later in October. At least publicly, Harris never agreed to a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News.
On Aug. 19, 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump posted online that his Democratic rival in the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris, announced that she would not participate in a Fox News-hosted debate on Sept. 4, 2024. Instead, he said, he "agreed to do a Tele-Town Hall" for the network.
Trump's full post on Truth Social stated:
Comrade Kamala Harris has just informed us that she will NOT do the FoxNews Debate on September 4th. I am not surprised by this development because I feel that she knows it is very difficult, at best, for her to defend her record setting Flip-Flopping on absolutely everything she once believed in, including her statements that THERE WILL BE NO FRACKING IN PENNSYLVANIA and her HORRIBLE Performance on the Border, our "Border Czar," where millions of criminals and people from mental institutions and terrorists, have been allowed to pour into our Country, totally unchecked and unvetted. It's called, and she LOVES IT, an OPEN BORDER!!! Rather than the debate on September 4th, I have agreed to do a Tele-Town Hall, anchored by Sean Hannity, for Fox. It will take place in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - Details to follow!
Following this post, pro-Trump and Republican social media accounts claimed Harris had "backed out" of a debate.
However, there is no publicly available evidence to support the claim that Harris "backed out" of doing a previously agreed upon debate. Harris' team never accepted — at least publicly — Trump's proposal of a Sept. 4, 2024, debate on Fox News in the first place, but did state the candidates agreed to other dates and would debate on other networks.
As such, we rate the claim she backed out of a Fox News debate as "False."
As to whether Trump's characterization of the debate agreement is true, we reached out to Harris' team for comment and will update this story if we get more information.
On Aug. 15, 2024 — four days before Trump's Truth Social post — Harris' campaign released a statement saying an agreement had been reached with the Trump team on a debate schedule:
The debate about debates is over. Donald Trump's campaign accepted our proposal for three debates— two presidential and a vice presidential debate.
Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on September 10 to debate Vice President Harris, then Governor Walz will see JD Vance on October 1 and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October.
Voters deserve to see the candidates for the highest office in the land share their competing visions for our future. The more they play games, the more insecure and unserious Trump and Vance reveal themselves to be to the American people. Those games end now.
The next day, however, Trump's campaign said the Harris campaign lied about the agreed-upon debate scheduled. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Daily Caller:
Let's be clear: President Trump will be on the debate stage THREE times with Fox News, ABC and NBC/Telemundo. Likewise, Senator Vance will show up to debate Tim Walz on TWO occasions, on September 18 with CNN and October 1 with CBS. If Harris and Walz don't show up, an empty podium can stand in their place, proving to the American people just how weak they are. …
There's been no proposal from a network for an October debate. They're just throwing that out there needlessly. …
President Trump committed to three debates. Kamala should commit to the same three debates. We both, both campaigns, received the exact same debate invitations from those three networks. …
Harris's advisors do not trust her competence and skills to debate President Trump. So they are trying to get away with seeing how she performs on the September debate, and then maybe they'll commit to an October debate. That's not how this works. …
Kamala Harris is a COWARD. She refuses to do a press conference, refuses to take a sit-down interview, and refuses to accept the three debate invitations agreed to by President Trump. Harris won't speak unscripted because she can't defend her dangerously liberal record and failed four years in the White House.
The 'Debate About Debates'
This "debate about debates" had already been going on for a few weeks at that point. In early August, Trump said he was dropping out of the Sept. 10 ABC News debate and proposed Harris meet him on Fox News earlier in the month. At the time, Trump said he had ongoing litigation against ABC News, thus creating a "conflict of interest." But he had agreed to the ABC News debate in May, before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and before Biden's poor debate performance against Trump on June 27.
However, the Harris campaign objected to Trump's proposal of a Fox News debate earlier in the month. Per a New York Times report, a Harris official said Trump came up with the Fox News debate to distract attention from his reneging on his own earlier commitment to the ABC debate.
Harris spokesperson Michael Tyler said in a statement on Aug. 2:
Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out. He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10.
The Vice President will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience. We're happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to. Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that unless he's too scared to show up on the 10th.
Tyler's statement referred to a previous Truth Social post in which Trump said he would debate Harris "ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!"
On Aug. 8, Trump said he would meet Harris to meet Harris on upcoming dates with Fox News, ABC and NBC News. Harris in turn told reporters she was glad Trump had agreed to the ABC debate on Sept. 10, but did not directly address his mention of the Fox News debate. At the time, she said, "I'm happy to have that conversation about an additional debate for after September 10th."