Things are heating up between this election’s vice presidential candidates.
J.D. Vance posted Thursday morning he’d accepted Tim Walz’s offer to debate him on CBS on Oct. 1, but also challenged the Minnesota governor to meet him on stage for a second debate even sooner.
“The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala to three of them already,” Vance wrote Thursday. “Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!”
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If Walz does step up to Vance’s challenge, it’d set a new precedent for vice presidential candidates. Since VP debates first became a thing in 1976, there’s either been no debates between the candidates, like in 1980, or there’s been only a single one. Never has there been multiple debates.
The challenge is quite the curveball for Walz, 60, who reportedly conceded to Harris during VP vetting that he’s not an experienced debater. Walz is yet to accept the second debate date, but, if he does, that’d give him two less weeks to prepare for the showdown than he had with the single debate.
Despite his lack of debate experience, Walz has looked comfortable dropping digs on Vance, 40, while speaking at campaign rallies the last two weeks. That may not be so easy of a task when staring down Vance in person, however, along with CBS Evening News anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, who’s set to moderate the Oct. 1 debate.
“I can’t wait to debate the guy,” Walz said of Vance in a rally clip that quickly went viral last week. “That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up... These guys are creepy and just weird as hell.”
On the presidential candidate side, Donald Trump has suggested he’s willing to debate Kamala Harris as many as three times—a sharp shift from when Joe Biden first bowed out of the race, when Trump suggested he shouldn’t debate Harris at all.
As of Thursday morning, only a single debate date has been finalized between the networks, Trump, and Harris. That showdown will be aired on ABC News the evening of Sept. 10.
Fox News has reportedly proposed a debate between Harris and Trump for Sept. 4 and NBC News has pushed to air one on Sept. 25. During a recent event in Michigan, Harris said she was “happy to have” a “conversation” about scheduling additional debates.
