In an effort to convince Donald Trump to return to the stage to debate Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats are planning a new campaign calling the former president a “chicken” for saying he would not debate again.
The Democratic National Committee will launch static billboards and mobile billboards.
The chicken billboards, which will appear for the first time at Trump’s rally Monday in Indiana, Pennsylvania, include a digitally altered image of Trump in a chicken costume alongside the words “There is no debate: Donald Trump is a chicken.”
An allied Democratic group will also display inflatable chickens resembling Trump outside its rallies.
Harris and Trump met for their first debate, hosted by ABC News, this month in Philadelphia.
The two men clashed over immigration, inflation and abortion, but two days later Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There will be no third debate!”
Although Harris and Trump have only met 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 had accepted CNN’s invitation to participate in a debate on October 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 claimed he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules and audience,” 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 would like to see other media outlets host it, saying last month that he had accepted a debate offered by Fox News.
But on Saturday, Mr Trump reiterated his decision not to participate in a new debate, telling the crowd at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, that “the problem with a new debate is it’s too late. The voting has already started.”
Early voting began in Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota last week.
In a press release about the upcoming chicken billboards, the Democratic National Committee noted that in the 2020 presidential cycle, Biden and Trump debated on October 22, also after voting began.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
