On the sets of Fox & Friends former President Donald Trump insulted Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum by insisting he didn’t want them to moderate a potential second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris before revealing he’s currently unlikely to participate via Mediaite.
Trump called into Fox & Friends early Wednesday morning and opened the interview by blasting ABC News and accusing the first debate moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, of heavily fact-checking his arguments while not doing the same for his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Steve Doocy also asked if he would accept Fox News’s offer to host a second debate with Harris on Fox News in October.
“Mr. President, I know when we started the interview, you said that you felt that you won the debate last night. Your best,” Doocy said.” I think before the debate happened last night, the Kamala Harris people said that they would actually like to do another debate in October. And I know that last night Fox News offered — sent letters to your campaign and her campaign offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha and Bret. One is October 9th in Arizona.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret,’ Trump replied. “I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I’d love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura. You know, somebody else. Let’s give let’s give other people a shot.”
He then explained why, adding, ‘But I didn’t think Martha and Bret were so good last night. Yes, he was. Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said, Jesse. Really got it. Jesse said to Trump once that debate that was we won that debate by a lot. And I wouldn’t want Martha involved.”
Trump then made clear that he wasn’t inclined to participate in a second debate:
“But look, here’s a story. When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate or they ask for a fight. So in this case, a debate. So we had two people. They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate, because that’s what when a fighter loses, he says, I want a rematch. I want a rematch. They always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch. I won the debate according to C-SPAN, by a lot, according to every single I think we had 14 polls that we said to you everyone had been winning the debate.”
Doocy followed up, saying, ‘So you don’t know if you want to do another debate. It sounds like you’re in. No.” Trump made clear he’s not currently inclined to do a second debate, saying:
“Well, I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible, terrible network. I think they were terrible. They should be embarrassed. I mean, they kept correcting me and I said what I said was largely right or I hope it was right. But what they said was absolutely wrong. The other you know what what she said. And they refused to. Correct. I even complained a couple of times. Why aren’t you correcting them? Look, they should have corrected 6 or 7 times. She told an outright lie. Another one is Project 2025. They know it has nothing to do with me. She mentioned it all night long and they refused to correct it. And everybody, you know, I haven’t I have nothing to do with Project 2020. I would just say one thing, but I am not inclined to do it because I won the debate by a lot. But I think we let it settle in and let’s see what happens.”
Brian Kilmeade stepped in to defend his colleagues. “I will say this. I think that Bret and Martha would do a phenomenal job, and they wouldn’t be bringing up Obamacare when and not talk about inflation,” he said. “And I think you would find them extremely fair. And I know you’ve dealt with both of them before.”