Transcript of Donald Trump agrees to Fox News plan for debate with Kamala Harris | BBC News

Turning to the US election now, and the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, says he has agreed to take part in a televised debate with Kamala Harris on Fox News next month. It's currently unclear whether Ms. Harris has agreed to the debate and its terms. Well, let's discuss this further with the professor of international politics, David Dunn. David, welcome. How much would each side have at stake in this debate?

Well, given how consequential the debate between Biden and Trump was, this is a huge deal for both sides. It matters. There will be a huge amount of attention on it. Actually, we have candidates who have a lot riding on the outcome of it. Trump will be trying to show that Harris is deeply radical and that she can't debate and she isn't fit to stand up to world leaders in the way that the robust and rumbumptuous Mr. Trump can. She will be trying to define herself separately to the way in which the Republicans have attacked her in those ads as someone who is unreliable and dangerously liberal. There will be a lot of focus on this event. Of course, his announcement today of the terms of those debates, which haven't been agreed by the Democratic Party, is him trying to dictate terms for that debate, wanting a live studio audience, wanting it to be hosted by Fox rather than ABC, which had previously been agreed for the second debate with Biden. There's a lot of politics in this, certainly.

Do you think Mr. Trump will be under more scrutiny than he was during that debate in which Biden was faltering?

Yeah, absolutely. What we had last time was 90 minutes when all the focus was on Biden stumbling. Trump told hundreds of lies during that thing, huge amounts of falsehoods, and effectively got a free ride because all the attention was on the mental acuity and frailty of Mr. Biden. What you can expect this time round is much more challenging. Harris has a background as a prosecutor. She has got a good analytical mind. She is much more energetic and focused. She is a skilled debater by virtue of her time in court and her career in law in California. Therefore, Trump will not get away with the easy ride that he had last time round. He, for his part, will be wanting to try and bully her in the way in which he is bullying Hillary Clinton in 2016 and bullied Biden in 2020. The There will be different strategies in play. The interesting thing is, is whether Trump will move beyond his trying to categorize her as weak because of her gender and her national ethnicity, or whether he'll actually deal with policy questions. If he does deal with policy questions, whether he will actually stick to the truth because he has a habit of saying inflation's worst it has ever been, crime's worst it has ever been, the border's worst it has ever been.

We'll have to leave it there, Professor David Dunn. Thank you for your your time. Stay with us here on BBC News.