Ex-Trump advisor says his refusal to debate Harris shows he’s 'lost his fighting spirit'

Anthony Scaramucci is among the many conservative Republicans who has endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president — a group that also includes former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Scaramucci was once a Donald Trump supporter, briefly serving as White House communications director in 2017.

But these days, he is a major critic of the former president. And he views Trump's reluctance to debate Harris a second time as a sign of weakness.

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Harris is making it clear that she would be glad to debate Trump on CNN on October 23, while Trump is saying that October 23 would be too close to the election.

After Harris' September 10 debate with Harris in Philadelphia, the 60-year-old Scaramucci told CNN, "It's 100 percent that he's gonna debate. I'll make that prediction here. He's a wrestler. You know, he's like a UFC thing. He's gonna say he's not gonna debate. He knows he lost the debate."

But in a September 23 post on X, formerly Twitter, Scaramucci wrote, "I have to confess that I got this wrong about Trump. I thought it was a ruse that he didn't want to debate by President Harris, but it appears that he's actually lost his fighting spirit. There is something wrong. Not exactly sure what it is."

Polls are still showing a close race in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, and Harris continues to describe herself as the "underdog." However, national polls released in late September show Harris ahead of Trump by 5 percent (Morning Consult and NBC News) or 4 percent (CBS News).

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