Back in the spring, the presidential campaigns sprung a surprise on us. Working around the moribund Commission on Presidential Debates, the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns came up with their own pair of showdowns: one on June 27 on CNN, and the other slated for September 10 on ABC.

However, once Joe Biden dropped out of the race after his abysmal performance in the first debate, there became a difference in opinion between Trump and Democrat nominee Kamala Harris regarding a future debate. Harris, who believes the initial agreement between Biden and Trump should stay in force, has been mocking Trump by saying, “It’s interesting how ‘any time, any place’ becomes ‘one specific time, one specific safe space.’ I’ll be there on September 10, like he agreed to. I hope to see him there.”

“I do hope you’ll reconsider and meet me on the debate stage,” Harris taunted at a recent appearance in Atlanta, “because, as the saying goes, ‘if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face!’”

It’s worth noting as well that Harris was quick to demand debates with JD Vance while she was still running as the second banana.

On the other side, Trump insisted that the deal he made with Joe Biden was exclusively with Scranton Joe — no Biden, no debate. He took advantage of the change in candidates to announce he had reached an agreement with Fox News to do a debate somewhere in Pennsylvania on September 4, less than a week before the previously agreed upon date and just days before early voting opens in some states. In announcing the change, Trump explained his reasoning in his usual inimitable way: “The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest.”

Unlike the ABC debate, this debate would also feature a live audience, which perhaps works to Trump’s advantage. “In some ways,” opined Trump running mate JD Vance, “it’s a masterstroke because, of course, the Kamala campaign has been saying for a long time that President Trump is afraid to debate Kamala Harris.”

But Harris has announced she won’t do the Fox News debate, despite the advice from Democrat strategist James Carville that such a debate should occur on September 18, the day Trump is sentenced on the trumped-up charges from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. “Let’s have it on Fox and let’s have it September the 18th when he’s in an ankle bracelet,” said Carville.

Since Harris has said no to Fox News, and Trump has stated, “I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all,” we have a number of possibilities. The most obvious one is that there won’t be any debate as the two sides become more entrenched. Matt Margolis of PJ Media has that sense, noting: “Remember when Kamala Harris got destroyed by Tulsi Gabbard during the 2020 Democratic primary debates? Do you think she’ll do any better against Trump? Of course not. She doesn’t want to debate Trump at all. That’s why she is trying to claim that the original debate schedule magically applies to her even though she wasn’t the candidate.”

There’s also the empty chair technique, which the Democrats are alluding to by claiming, “Trump is afraid to debate because he’s hiding from his toxic Project 2025 agenda.”

Yet there’s baggage on Kamala’s side as well. As Jazz Shaw of Hot Air opines, “Kamala Harris isn’t really even a legitimate nominee or someone who should be making demands regarding a potential debate. Not a single person voted for her in her party’s primary, and she was pushed forward by the party elders who clearly controlled the levers of power after they realized that Joe Biden was no longer a useful tool. I still hope that she winds up debating Donald Trump on a level playing field, however. The country deserves to see them square off. And how much worse than Joe could she possibly do?”

Unless one side or the other concedes — perhaps the polls will make it inevitable — America will most likely not find out.