Trump Should Play Hardball in the Debate Standoff with Harris

The vice president needs a debate much more than Trump does.

While the media are reporting that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will debate on September 10, the truth is that they continue to talk past each other when scheduling their faceoffs. Trump’s slide in the polls is putting some pressure on him to agree to Harris’s and the media’s terms quickly. Trump should resist that pressure because time is on his side.

Debates usually happen only in contested races whose outcome is in doubt. That makes sense: Why should someone who’s guaranteed to win give their opponent a chance to shine, or risk making a fatal mistake?

This reason alone suggests the two will face off at some point. Nobody thinks either candidate has, or will have, this race in the bag. The real question, then, is whether Harris or Trump will have the upper hand in setting the frame in which the confrontation occurs.