Conservative pundit George Conway criticized former President Trump for seemingly refusing to debate Vice President Harris, calling him a “wuss.”
Conway joined MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes” Friday evening to discuss the future of the general election after a whirlwind few weeks.
He listened to a recent clip of Trump, where the GOP nominee for president questioned why he should debate Harris if he is “leading in the polls” — the same argument he used when sitting out the Republican primary debates earlier in the cycle — and said voters already know who each of the candidates are.
“I got one word for that: Wuss,” Conway said. “He is a wuss. He is scared of her. She will run circles around him, and he knows that.”
With Democrats coalescing around Harris after President Biden bowed out of the race last month, the pressure is on for Trump to debate the vice president.
Harris has agreed to debate the former president and has accused Trump of “backpedaling.”
The potential Harris-Trump debate could be seen as a stark moment differentiating her from Biden and his poor debate performance in June that plunged his campaign into the deep end, after he appeared to lack energy and lost his train of thought on stage.
At first, Trump said he would “absolutely” debate Harris, even though his campaign declined to commit to a forum until after she received the official nomination. Later, the former president said he’d “probably” debate her but is sticking to the idea that he originally agreed to the Sept. 10 debate with Biden, not Harris.
Conway argued that Harris is someone who can get under Trump’s skin.
“She’s got the perfect happy warrior demeanor to do this, is make fun of him to his face,” he said Friday.
At a recent rally in Atlanta, Harris challenged Trump, telling a crowd that if he had something to say about her, he should “say it to my face.” Harris’s campaign has also said Trump is “too scared” to debate her and he needs to “man up.”
Conway thinks that if the former president does criticize Harris in person and in real time, “she will just roll her eyes and laugh and cackle.”
“And it will make him look incredibly weak,” he added. “She will destroy him.”