Trump refuses Harris plan for October debate

WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris on Saturday challenged Donald Trump to another debate in the lead-up to the US presidential election, but the Republican snubbed the offer, saying it was «too late.»

Earlier in the day, Harris´s campaign said she had accepted an invitation from broadcaster CNN to participate in a debate on October 23. It would have been their second debate, after a September 10 encounter she was widely considered to have won.

«The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their ballots,» her campaign chair Jen O´Malley Dillon said in a statement.

But Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina, said he would like to debate -- calling it «good entertainment value» -- but that the start of early voting in some states had taken the air out of the idea. «It´s just too late, voting has already started,» he said. He added, to a large and enthusiastic crowd of supporters, that while CNN had been «very fair» when he debated President Joe Biden in June, «they won´t be fair again» after criticism for the handling of the first debate.

Saturday´s announcement came as some states have already begun early voting in what is an agonizingly close race.

On the campaign trail on Friday, Harris cast Trump and his party as «hypocrites» over abortion, blaming the former president for an abortion ban in the battleground state of Georgia that she said had caused the deaths of two women.

Trump has frequently bragged on the campaign trail that his three Supreme Court picks paved the way for the 2022 overturning of the national right to abortion, turning the decision over to states.

At least 20 states have since brought in full or partial restrictions, with Georgia banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The race remains neck-and-neck, with Trump running with the support of a conservative religious voter base and others, many of whom feel disaffected by the country´s political and economic status quo.

Hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric has become a centerpiece of his election campaign.

The race between Harris and Trump has continued amid a tense atmosphere that was brought to the fore last weekend when a gunman appeared to have tried to assassinate Trump in Florida, the second such threat in as many months.

Every vote will count in the race, whose result Trump has once again refused to say he will accept if he loses.

Trump faces criminal charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 result, after which his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The result is expected to hinge on just seven battleground states, including North Carolina.