Former President Trump says he’s open to debating Vice President Kamala Harris more than once as the two face off in the 2024 presidential election.

‘Absolutely. I’d want to. I think it’s important,’ Trump said Tuesday when asked by Fox News’ Bill Melugin on a conference call with reporters if he would commit to debating Harris at least once.

‘I would be willing to do more than one debate, actually,’ Trump emphasized.

Minutes later, Trump noted, ‘I haven’t agreed to anything. I agreed to a debate with Joe Biden.’

President Biden, in a blockbuster announcement Sunday, suspended his 2024 re-election rematch with Trump and endorsed his vice president. The move by Biden ignited a surge of endorsements by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders backing Harris to succeed Biden as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.

Biden suspended his campaign amid mounting pressure from within the Democratic Party for him to drop out after a disastrous performance in last month’s first presidential debate with Trump.

The 81-year-old president’s uneven delivery and awkward answers during the first 20 minutes of the debate in front of a national audience quickly prompted questions about his mental and physical ability to serve another four years in the White House.

Harris on Monday night announced that she’d locked up the nomination by landing commitments of backing from a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention, which kicks off Aug. 19 in Chicago. 

Trump told reporters debating Harris instead of Biden ‘will be no different because they have the same policies.’

The former president, who skipped out on the GOP presidential primary debates with his Republican challengers, said, ‘I think debating is important for a presidential race. I really do.

‘I think if you’re the Democrat nominee or the Republican nominee, you have an obligation to debate. I think it’s very important.’

Trump, in comments with reporters on a call where he amplified his criticism of Harris on the crucial issue of border security, once again took aim at ABC News, which was scheduled to host the second debate between Biden and Trump in early September.

‘I’m not thrilled about ABC because they’re truly fake news,’ Trump said.

He noted that when it comes to the next presidential debate, ‘I have at least equal say. And I don’t like the idea of ABC.’

Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is demanding that a group claiming to represent former Haley voters who support the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris stop using her name.

‘Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong,’ Haley said in a statement shared first with Fox News on Tuesday. ‘I support Donald Trump because he understands we need to make America strong, safe, and prosperous.’

Haley’s comments were directed toward a political action committee (PAC) that was previously known as ‘Haley Voters for Biden.’

The group started featuring Harris’ name on Sunday, after President Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president to succeed him as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

Haley launched her own White House bid in February of last year, becoming the first major Republican candidate to challenge former President Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. And she was the last rival to Trump left standing before she dropped out of the race in early March. Even after ending her campaign, Haley continued to grab up to 20% of the vote in some of the ensuing Republican presidential primaries.

Haley was a very vocal critic of the former president during their heated primary race. But in late May, in her first public comments since announcing the end of her 2024 campaign, Haley said she would vote for Trump. And in a speech last week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she formally endorsed Trump.

The group, which says it’s a coalition of former Haley voters, pledged their support for Harris soon after Biden endorsed his vice president.

‘We support @JoeBiden’s recommendation and will immediately change the name of our organization to Haley Voters for Harris. There is no time to lose,’ the group wrote in a social media posting on Sunday afternoon.

The group, which changed the name of its page on X and on its website, also spotlighted that it has no affiliation with Haley or her aligned political committees.

‘We also do not and never claimed to speak for Nikki Haley. We are reaching out to a subset of Haley voters who will vote their consciences,’ the group wrote. ‘Haley said Trump had to earn our votes. He has done nothing to do so – constantly deriding her – and picked Vance as his running mate.’

But a letter from a law firm representing Haley’s presidential campaign, shared with Fox News, demanded that the group ‘cease and desist from any unlawful use of Ambassador Haley’s name in your political action committee name, and from any use of her name, image or likeness that implies her support for the election of Kamala Harris as President of the United States.’

‘Any use by you of Ambassador Haley’s name, image, or likeness is without her permission. Ambassador Haley has been clear in her support of Harris’ opponent. Any intimation that Ambassador Haley supports Harris is intentionally false and misleading,’ the letter continued.

The letter warns that if the group fundraises under the name ‘Haley Voters for Harris’ or a similar name, the Haley campaign will alert investigative authorities, including the Justice Department and the FBI.

Less than 36 hours after Biden’s blockbuster news, Harris announced that she had locked up the nomination.

‘I am proud to have earned the support needed to become our party’s nominee,’ the vice president wrote in a social media post just after midnight early Tuesday morning.

Harris showcased that she’d won commitments of backing from a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention, which kicks off Aug. 19 in Chicago. 

As much of the Democratic Party – including governors, senators and House members as well as party leaders – quickly coalesced behind Harris following Biden’s blockbuster news, state delegations to the convention started huddling the past two days and announced their support for the vice president. And an Associated Press survey of Democratic delegates indicated by late Monday that Harris had gone over the top.

Last week, before Biden ended his bid, Haley reiterated her criticism of Harris when it comes to the crisis at the nation’s southern border.

In her address at the GOP convention, Haley emphasized that the vice president ‘had one job… and that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country.’

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is facing renewed criticism for her past support of banning fracking, which she boldly proclaimed while running for president in 2019, particularly from critics pointing out the popularity of fracking in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania.

‘There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,’ Harris said during a 2019 town hall on CNN as a presidential candidate. 

‘And starting with what we can do on day one around public lands, right? And then there has to be legislation, but, yes, that’s’ something I’ve taken on in California. I have a history of working on this issue and to your point we have to just acknowledge that the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the health and safety of communities.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella, said, ‘Kamala Harris is the most far left progressive presidential nominee in history, and extreme Democrats in the Rust Belt now own every single policy she supports.’

‘A fracking ban would be disastrous for workers and families, and extreme Democrats’ mission to force Biden to step aside and replace him with San Francisco radical Kamala Harris shows exactly how out of touch they are with their voters.’ 

‘Banning fracking would cause home electricity costs to skyrocket and devastate Western PA’s natural gas economy,’ Republican state Rep. Rob Mercuri, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 17th District, told Fox News Digital. 

‘Clean natural gas production is America’s best opportunity for reliable and affordable energy needs well into the future. Expanding America‘s energy economy will provide thousands of good union and non union jobs for hard-working Pennsylvanians. As your congressman, I will always support the production of clean natural gas.’

Harris also faced intense criticism from conservatives on social media after Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing his vice president.

‘Kamala Harris is even more extreme than Joe Biden – She wants to ban fracking and kill countless jobs in states like PA for American workers,’ Donald Trump Jr. posted on X. 

‘This is who Bob Casey just endorsed for the presidency,’ GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick posted on X in response to Sen. Bob Casey’s endorsement of Harris.

‘Dear Pennsylvania… take it from this Californian, don’t let Kamala Harris anywhere near your energy sources,’ former acting Director of the United States National Intelligence Ric Grenell posted on X. 

‘She’s a radical environmentalist even for California. Even Obama eventually read the science and agreed to fracking. As Attorney General, Kamala worked overtime to make sure liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals were not built throughout the entire state of California.’

‘Fracking supports tens of thousands of jobs in swing states like Pennsylvania,’ Power The Future founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner posted on X. ‘There’s no question that energy is on the ballot in November.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign but did not receive a response.

The fracking process, which involves injecting water into shale rock at high pressure to extract natural gas, has revolutionized the oil and gas industry by allowing producers to reach large quantities within shale rock that were previously unattainable and cost-prohibitive to drill.

As a result, oil and gas production in the U.S. has nearly tripled over the past decade. More than 95% of new wells use hydraulic fracking, accounting for about two-thirds of natural gas production and half of oil output in 2018, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Proponents argue that fracking is critical for the U.S. becoming energy independent and is also the reason for a sharp drop in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade.

Opponents, however, say fracking pollutes drinking water and air and releases greenhouse gases into the ozone, contributing to global warming.

Overall, the fossil fuel industry in Pennsylvania supports about 50,547 jobs, a 2021 report published by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection showed. 

Pennsylvania, believed to be one of the states the 2024 election will hinge on, is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S. behind only Texas, according to the Energy Information Administration. Driven largely by its natural gas production and power plant generation, Pennsylvania is the largest electricity exporter in the country.

Fox News Digital’s Jonathan Garber and Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report 

Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who is involved in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country, is yet to endorse the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris despite recruiting her to the Senate and referring to her as a ‘friend.’

Several high profile Democrats have endorsed Harris for president after President Biden stepped down but when contacted by Fox News Digital this week about his endorsement, Tester’s office pointed to a Sunday press release from Tester thanking Biden for his public service and his support of an open nomination process. 

Tester’s office did not respond when asked if he would wait until the Democratic National Convention in August to endorse Harris given that talks of an open primary seem to have subsided and Harris has locked up the delegates necessary for the nomination.

Tester’s relationship with Harris goes back many years and the Montana senator was reportedly directly involved in recruiting Harris to the Senate in 2015 when he was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

‘It gets me in on leadership meetings and allows me to influence where the party is going, what the party’s going to do … to focus on things that are important,’ Tester said about his role at DSCC in 2014.

In 2020, Tester called Harris a ‘friend’ while touting her nomination as vice president in a social media post.

‘It’s surprising that Jon Tester is trying to distance himself from Kamala Harris after he recruited her to run for Senate, strongly endorsed her for Vice President, and voted with her 100% of the time on her tie-breaking Senate votes,’ NRSC Spokeswoman Maggie Abboud told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘It seems like Tester is trying to fool voters in an election year.’ 

Tester is widely viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate as he runs for reelection in a state that former President Trump won by 16 points in 2020.

Tester, who has been attempting to frame his record as more moderate as he faces a tough reelection, called on Biden to step down last week after speaking with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Fox News Digital reported.

The Cook Political Report ranks Tester’s race as a ‘toss up.’

President Biden will address the nation on Wednesday after his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election. 

Biden will speak to the American people about why he decided to exit the race and what he plans to focus on for the remaining six months of his first term. His address will be delivered from the Oval Office, the White House said. 

The president is expected to be seen in public for the first time in six days on Tuesday as he returns to the nation’s capital from his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Biden has not appeared publicly since reportedly testing positive for COVID-19 last week. His only public remarks on his stunning decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election came Monday during a brief phone call into the campaign headquarters of Vice Presidential Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. 

According to the president’s public schedule, Biden will depart from Delaware at 12:30 p.m. He will then fly from Dover Air Force Base to Joint Base Andrews to return to the White House at around 2:30 p.m. The president will receive his daily briefing at 3 p.m. There are no public events on his schedule. 

In a letter released on X Sunday, Biden said he believes it is in the ‘best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.’ 

‘I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision,’ he added, though he gave no details on the time, place or manner in which he would speak. 

Last week, Biden began to self-isolate after reportedly testing positive for COVID-19. He was last seen publicly deplaning in Delaware on July 17.

In a letter updating the status of 81-year-old Biden’s medical condition on Friday, the physician to the president, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, wrote that Biden ‘completed his sixth dose of PAXLOVID this morning.’

Biden ‘is still experiencing a loose, non-productive cough and hoarseness, but his symptoms continue to improve steadily,’ O’Connor wrote in the letter released by the White House. 

‘His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal,’ the doctor said. ‘His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear.’ 

The doctor said Biden has the KP .2.3 variant, which accounts for approximately 33.3% of new infections in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

‘The President continues to tolerate treatment well and will continue PAXLOVID as planned,’ the letter says. ‘He continues to perform all his presidential duties.’ 

Biden will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House, according to a U.S. official. Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. a little more than 24 hours after Biden announced that he would no longer seek re-election. 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu will give a speech in front of Congress, though Harris reportedly declined to preside over the address, according to the Washington Post. Before departing Israel for D.C., Netanyahu told reporters that his country would stand by the U.S. ‘regardless [of] who the American people choose as their next president.’

‘In this time of war and uncertainty, it’s important that Israel’s enemies know that America and Israel stand together,’ the leader said.

Netanyahu also requested a meeting with former President Trump this week, according to Politico. It is unclear if Trump agreed to the meeting.

Fox News’ Kaitlin Sprague and Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ office told Fox News Digital Tuesday morning that she believes President Biden is currently capable of serving as president – after the sudden suspension of his campaign heightened concerns over his ability to complete his term.

Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday after more than 30 Democratic lawmakers called on him to withdraw. Pressure mounted following his catastrophic performance at the first presidential debate in June, where he was seen speaking with a raspy voice and jumbling up his words.

Lawmakers immediately began to question Biden’s ability to serve the remainder of his term if he is unable to seek re-election, but the vice president remains confident in Biden’s ability to serve.

Asked if Harris believes Biden is currently capable of serving as president, the vice president’s office told Fox News Digital, ‘Yes.’

‘As the Vice President has said many times before, the nation is lucky to have President Biden leading our nation,’ Ernesto Apreza, press secretary to the vice president, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

The president has been isolated in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for nearly a week since testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. The White House physician released several updates on the president’s health since his diagnosis, writing Monday that he ‘continues to perform all of his presidential duties.’

The president said in his withdrawal announcement that he will spend the remainder of his term ‘solely on fulfilling my duties as President,’ but some lawmakers are calling on his Cabinet to take action and remove him immediately.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., sent a letter to Harris and every member of Biden’s Cabinet on Monday demanding they invoke the 25th Amendment, which states that a vice president and Cabinet majority can vote to oust the president in the case that he is unfit to serve.

‘Joe Biden has decided he isn’t capable of being a candidate; in so doing his admission also means he cannot serve as President,’ Schmitt said. 

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said she would be introducing a similar resolution to call on Harris to invoke the measure.

Former Vice President Mike Pence sent letters to pro-life Republican National Convention delegates who worked to amplify pro-life issues on the GOP’s 2024 platform that ultimately softened its language on abortion.

‘As you battled to restore the pro-life platform, you were an inspiration to millions of pro-life Americans, who remain profoundly disappointed by the Republican Party’s decision to water down the previously strong pro-life platform for political expediency,’ Pence wrote in the Tuesday letters. 

‘While we ultimately fell short in our noble effort to restore the historic pro-life principles included in the 2016 and 2020 platforms, we did so with moral clarity and compassion about advancing the cause of life,’ he continued in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The GOP platform this election cycle notably only mentions abortion once, instead focusing on the preservation of life and returning power to the states when developing laws surrounding abortion. In 2016, when Pence ran as Trump’s running mate, the GOP platform used the word ‘abortion’ 35 times. 

The softening of language surrounding abortion this year sparked some condemnation from those in the pro-life movement, including Pence. 

‘Now is not the time to surrender any ground in the fight for the right to life. The 2024 platform removed historic pro-life principles that have long been the foundation of the platform. I urge delegates attending next week’s Republican Convention to restore language to our party’s platform recognizing the sanctity of human life and affirming that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,’ Pence said earlier this month when the draft of the GOP platform first surfaced. 

Advancing American Freedom, a nonprofit founded by Pence that advocates for conservative values and policy proposals, had urged conservatives and delegates earlier this year to ‘remain vigilant in defense of a strong conservative platform,’ including on abortion. 

Fox News Digital spoke with Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who chaired the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee, earlier this month when the platform’s draft was first released. Blackburn said when crafting the platform, committee members had to take into account the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively ended the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, and ruled that individual states have the power to allow, limit or ban abortion procedures. 

‘And so, having as we do with all other issues, whether it’s defending religious liberty, or protecting free speech, or working to end the gender insanity – this left-wing gender insanity – and protecting our rights and freedoms. What the platform says is we proudly stand for families and for life.’

Trump has also repeatedly hammered that he believes abortion laws and issues should be left up to the states. The DNC has, meanwhile, attacked Trump and Republicans as working to ban abortion federally if the 45th president is re-elected. 

‘Donald Trump said himself there’s a ‘vital role for the federal government’ in banning abortion, and then proudly chose JD Vance as his running mate – a man who has repeatedly supported national abortion bans and even admitted he wants abortion to be ‘illegal nationally.’ If given the chance, Trump and Vance will enact their dangerous Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion nationwide with or without Congress, threaten access to IVF and contraception, and strip away our fundamental rights,’ DNC spokesperson Aida Ross said in a statement Monday. 

Pence continued in his letter to pro-life delegates that he is ‘proud to play an important role in the most pro-life administration in American history,’ touting that ‘we sent Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history and advanced the cause of life wherever and however we could.’

‘Today, we see an America led by the most extreme pro-abortion administration in American history. Yet Republicans seemingly insist that we retreat rather than courageously advance the cause of life,’ he continued. 

The GOP platform was officially adopted by the party last week during the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and pledges to enact policies that would seal the border and end the ‘migrant invasion,’ end inflation, prevent ‘World War Three’ and unite the U.S. ‘by bringing it to new and record levels of success.’ 

‘The Republican Party must return to being the party of life. We must not rest or relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in our land. With pro-life voices like yours, I have no doubt that one day life will win again. Generations born and unborn deserve nothing less,’ Pence continued in his letter to pro-life delegates. 

‘The fight for life is not over. And we will win in this great campaign. So help us God.’

Former President Trump said he had ‘automatic chemistry’ with his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, in a Fox News interview on Monday.

Trump dismissed the pair’s past disagreements as a misunderstanding before they got to know each other, saying Vance is now among his strongest allies.

‘Originally, JD was probably not for me, but he didn’t know me,’ Trump said in the ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’ interview. ‘And then when we got to know each other, he liked me maybe more than anybody liked me.’

The former president continued, ‘And he would stick up for me. And he’d fight for the worker as much as I fight for the worker. We just had an automatic chemistry.’

Vance was an early critic of Trump in 2016, when the former president was campaigning to eventually beat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. 

At the time, Vance had dismissed Trump as ‘cultural heroin’ who was leading the disenfranchised working class into a ‘very dark place.’

Private text messages leaked by Vance’s former roommate show him calling Trump a ‘cynical’ leader and wondering if he would be ‘America’s Hitler.’

Vance’s stance began to shift while Trump was in office, which the Ohio senator said proved many of his assumptions wrong.

Vance told Fox in 2021 that he would never deny having been anti-Trump going into his first administration but that he was happy to have been proven wrong.

‘I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy,’ Vance said. ‘I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.’

Trump endorsed Vance for the Senate in his successful 2022 campaign, further solidifying their alliance.

‘I was wrong about him,’ Vance told CNN in May. ‘I didn’t think he was going to be a good president. And I was very, very proud to be proven wrong. It’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to get him elected.’

In the recent interview with Watters, Trump offered specific praise for Vance’s 2016 memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ which shed light on the struggles of the White underclass in the U.S. – the world in which Vance grew up.

‘It was all about the working men and women and how they aren’t being treated fairly. And he was right about that,’ Trump said. ‘And I understood that maybe better than anyone else. And we just have had a great relationship. And he had serious competition.’