Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci predicted that Donald Trump will end up debating Vice President Kamala Harris and issued a warning for the former president if he did otherwise.
“It would be a disaster for him if he doesn’t debate the vice president,” Scaramucci told CNN host Jessica Dean on Saturday.
The Republican nominee announced late Friday that he wouldn’t commit to an ABC News-moderated debate on Sept. 10 that he set with Joe Biden prior to the president dropping his reelection bid last month.
Trump — who previously declared that he’d debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, anyplace” and has pushed for the next debate to take place on Fox News since Harris took over the Democratic ticket — has instead backed a proposal for the conservative network to moderate a Sept. 4 debate.
Scaramucci, who famously had a 10-day stint as Trump’s White House communications director, said Trump backing away from the ABC News plan is par for the course.
“I think it’s very typical of him but he’s 100% percent going to debate Vice President Harris,” said Scaramucci, who predicted that such an event would “probably” not be moderated by Fox News or ABC News.
He continued, “This is him posturing, this is him trying to get attention. It’s hard for him but he has struggled over the last three weeks to win the attention cycle, he certainly hasn’t gotten it relative to the Harris campaign and so he’s trying to do that right now.”
Scaramucci added that the former president understands he eventually needs to debate Harris prior to the election.
“Listen, he knows if he doesn’t debate her he has six weeks of getting pounded by her and her vice presidential candidate on the fact that he didn’t debate her,” said Scaramucci, who noted that there’s been attention on Trump having a “difficult time with women.”
He continued, “What a disaster it would be for him and his people if she can say very simply and very concisely, ’He was just afraid to debate me because I’m more put together, I’m more cognitively aware or [I have] more verbal acuity than him. What a disaster it would be for him, he knows that.”