ATLANTA: Kamala Harris’ campaign called Donald Trump “scared” on Saturday after he suggested rescheduling a debate as the Republican rallied in Georgia in an effort to blunt the vice president’s growing momentum in her bid to become America’s first female president.
In an overnight post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he was willing to debate Harris on the conservative-leaning Fox News network on Sept. 4, declining to attend a previously scheduled debate on ABC.
Trump floated the idea before heading to a rally in Atlanta, rallying his supporters in the same arena where Harris spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of about 10,000 on Tuesday.
The former president unleashed his extreme scaremongering on illegal immigration, falsely claiming there was a flood of killers from around the world — he singled out “Congo” — that had been let into the United States by Harris, who he said had “destroyed our country.” .”
His rambling, 92-minute speech included Trump’s oft-repeated lie that the 2020 election was “rigged” by Democrats.
As for the Harris debate, Trump said he “agreed” with Fox on the plan. And he said it would happen in Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground in the presidential election system — in front of a live audience.
“We’ll do one with Fox if they show up,” Trump said at a rally in Atlanta. “I don’t think he’ll show up. He can’t talk.”
The Harris campaign dismissed Trump’s idea as “games.”
“Donald Trump is running scared trying to back out of a debate he’s already agreed to and he’s running straight to Fox News to save him,” Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement. “He has to… appear for the debate he’s already committed to on September 10.”
Trump’s proposal to confront Harris on Fox, the network that has long supported him, was his latest attempt to regain momentum in a campaign that was focused on retaliating against Joe Biden until the 81-year-old dramatically dropped his re-election bid. Moon.
Since then, Harris, 59, has reenergized the Democratic base almost overnight.
She raked in donations, reassembled the team behind Barack Obama’s two historic electoral victories and neutralized the solid lead Trump, 78, had built up against Biden in the polls.
On Friday, she secured the official Democratic nomination backed by the party’s near-unanimous support.
Harris is expected to announce her vice presidential pick soon, with the popular governor of key Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the frontrunner. On Tuesday, he will begin a national tour with his running buddy.
Faced with a new rival, Trump raced to define her to voters as he launched a stream of personal attacks, calling her a “lunatic,” a “Marxist accuser” and a “radical left-wing freak” who will cause an “economic meltdown in Kamala.” if elected.
“We have to work hard to define it,” Trump told supporters. “It’s a horror show.
But Trump stopped short of openly questioning his rival’s racial identity.
This week, he drew gasps at a convention of black journalists by falsely claiming that Harris, who has closely identified with her black roots all her life, had recently “become black” for political gain.
On Saturday, Trump was joined by his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, at the rally in Georgia — another battleground that will help decide who wins on November 5.
Vance seized on the theory popularized by Republicans that Harris and the White House coterie were involved in a “massive cover-up of the president’s mental incapacity,” citing Biden’s age-related ability to serve effectively.
“Anyone too blind to see Biden’s incompetence — or, let’s be honest, too dishonest to admit it — doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief,” Vance told the crowd.
Trump narrowly lost to Biden in Georgia in 2020, and the state has been the focus of his unprecedented attempts to overturn the election results.
The size of Harris’ rally on Tuesday was a warning sign for the Trump campaign, which has long touted its ability to draw thousands of passionate supporters, unlike Biden’s usually sparse crowds.
The situation is a remarkable turnaround in a campaign where Trump appeared to be gathering steam while Biden — hurt by a disastrous debate performance in June and growing concerns among voters about his mental acuity — has steadily declined.
Harris’s rapid rise has caused Trump’s campaign to collapse — and Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in US history. Adding to the changed dynamic is that Harris is competing to become the first woman in the presidency and the first of black and Indian biracial heritage.
