Donald Trump, who has continued to dodge opportunities to debate Vice President Kamala Harris again, mocked politicians for being “afraid” to debate in a clip resurfaced by CNN on Thursday.
“And you know, some of ‘em don’t have the courage to do it. I don’t wanna say who but there are a couple —,” said the GOP nominee in a 2011 appearance on Fox Business’ “Imus in the Morning” radio show.
Trump’s comments came as his plans to moderate a Newsmax-hosted Republican debate in Iowa began to fall apart that December.
Then-candidates Jon M. Huntsman Jr., Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and eventual-2012 GOP presidential nominee Utah Sen. Mitt Romney declined to participate in the debate at the time while Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum committed to the eventually-scrapped event.
“I mean, there are a couple of ’em that called me and told me, ‘I just, Donald, I’m just too nervous to do it,’” Trump told host Don Imus.
“And I’m saying to myself, here’s the guy that’s supposed to negotiate, or a person that’s supposed to negotiate against China. These guys come out of the womb. They never cry. You know, they’re not even crying. And we have guys that are afraid to go into a debate.”
Trump would go on to abandon the debate plans, claiming that candidates were “very concerned” that he could announce an independent presidential bid.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, in an appearance on “Erin Burnett OutFront,” also pointed to a separate 2011 clip where Trump told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that the Republicans who backed out were “supposed to be brave.”
Kaczynski noted that the candidates he criticized that year debated about 11 times prior to the scrapped Newsmax event.
The former president has cooked up a variety of reasons why he won’t debate Harris again following their lone face-off back in September.
Trump, who notably skipped out on debates with fellow Republicans in the primaries, took to his Truth Social platform just two days after his debate with Harris to claim that polls “clearly show” he won.
“THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he wrote in a post at the time.
After Harris accepted an invite to a proposed Oct. 23 debate on CNN, the GOP nominee claimed it was “too late” for such an affair and he didn’t want to beat her again.
He’d later turn down an invite for a Fox News debate proposed for later this month, telling his social media platform that there “will be no rematch.” Harris would go on to agree to a sit-down interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, one of the proposed moderators for the face-off on the network, earlier this week.
