CNN
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When former President Donald Trump looks up from his seat at Bryant-Denny Stadium during the Alabama-Georgia football game Saturday night, he may see more than just 100,000 fans watching a high-stakes college football showdown. That’s because Vice President Kamala Harris plans to troll her opponent — off the air — over his refusal to debate her a second time.

The Harris campaign arranged for a small plane to fly over Tuscaloosa during the game with a banner reading “Trump’s Punting in the Second Debate.”

It’s a challenge that won’t just be visible to those cheering on the Crimson Tide or Georgia Bulldogs from the stands, a campaign official tells CNN. The Harris campaign will also air a national ad during one of college football’s most anticipated games urging the former president to meet her on the debate stage once again.

“Winners never back down from a challenge,” says the ad’s narrator. “Champions know that it can be done anytime, anywhere. But losers, they whine and complain and take their ball home.”

The vice president’s campaign has accepted CNN’s invitation to a second debate next month, but Trump has so far declined the invitation, arguing that the Oct. 23 date is “too late” for another confrontation because in some states the early voting has already begun. Both the 2020 and 2016 races had debates in mid-October that Trump attended.

Despite what he has said publicly, Trump has privately flirted with the idea of ​​meeting Harris on the debate stage again, sources tell CNN. Several of his advisers have argued that it could serve to convey to the American people his case that Harris has been in office for more than four years to fulfill the campaign promises she is now making – a message that some of Trump’s allies do not I think he pushed hard enough when they debated in Philadelphia earlier this month.

But some of Trump’s advisers believe he is adamant it won’t happen. The former president himself said it could depend on his mood.

A second meeting could also benefit Harris. While several polls, including the New York Times-Sienna College one, found that the vast majority of viewers believed Harris beat Trump in the debate, this failed to provide a significant boost and the race remained dead.