In a bid to coax Donald Trump back onto the debate stage with Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats plan to launch a new messaging campaign dubbing the former president a “chicken” for saying he won’t debate again.
The Democratic National Committee will launch static billboards and mobile billboards.
The chicken billboards, which will first appear at Trump’s rally Monday in Indiana, Pennsylvania, include a digitally altered image of Trump in a chicken suit alongside the words “There’s no debate: Donald Trump’s a chicken.”
The DNC originally said it would be sending staffers dressed in chicken suits to Trump rallies as part of the messaging campaign, but after this article was published Monday, a spokesperson for the group said that would no longer occur. Instead, a pro-Harris student group at Indiana University of Pennsylvania — where Trump is speaking — would send inflatable chickens to his rally there, instead.
Harris and Trump met for their first debate, hosted by ABC News, this month in Philadelphia.
The pair sparred over immigration, inflation and abortion, but just two days later, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “There will be no third debate!”
While Harris and Trump met on the debate stage just once this cycle, Trump also debated President Joe Biden in June when he was still in the race.
On Saturday, Harris’ campaign announced that she’d accepted CNN‘s invitation to participate in a debate on Oct. 23.
“Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate. It is the same format and setup as the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules, and ratings,” Harris campaign co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement Saturday.
CNN moderated the debate against Biden earlier in the cycle, and Trump has indicated he’d like to see other outlets host, saying last month he’d agreed to a proposed Fox News debate.
But Trump on Saturday reiterated his decision not to debate again, telling the audience at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, that “the problem with another debate is that it’s just too late. Voting has already started.”
Early voting began in Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota last week.
In a news release about the coming chicken billboards, the Democratic National Committee pointed out that in the 2020 presidential cycle, Biden and Trump debated on Oct. 22, which was also after voting had begun.
The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
