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Trump and Harris to debate on ABC on Sept 10
The ABC debate was scheduled before Harris, the U.S. vice president, replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate less than three weeks ago.
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File photo / Reuters
(Reuters) -U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic rival Kamala Harris will debate on Sept. 10 on ABC, the network confirmed on Aug. 8, while Trump said he wants to add two more debates that month on Fox and NBC.
In a rambling news conference at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, Trump said he wanted debates on Sept. 4 and Sept. 25 as well. He did not detail specific terms, such as whether there would be an audience, and it was not immediately clear whether his campaign had made a proposal to Harris' camp.
The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.
Trump had previously suggested he might back out of the ABC debate, which was scheduled before Harris, the U.S. vice president, replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate less than three weeks ago, upending the contest.
The news conference was Trump's first public appearance since Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6.
Harris and Walz have headlined rallies in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin this week, drawing tens of thousands of attendees in a fresh sign of how her late entry into the race has galvanized Democrats.
Her rapid rise has sent Trump's team scrambling to recalibrate their strategy and messaging. Opinion polls show Harris has erased the lead Trump had built over President Joe Biden, and Democrats have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from voters and big donors in a matter of weeks.
Asked on how he has altered his approach to the new challenge from Harris, Trump insisted he has not done so.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters that stretched beyond an hour, Trump moved from topic to topic, claiming Harris and Walz were weak candidates who were already dropping in the polls.
Despite that, he lamented that he isn't able to face Biden in the election, suggesting that the president was a victim of an unconstitutional plot to dislodge him from atop the Democratic ticket.
Biden dropped his faltering reelection bid under pressure from fellow Democrats worried about his chances of victory in the Nov. 5 election after a poor debate performance against Trump.
Trump also mocked the size of Harris' campaign crowds, even though they have matched his of late. He falsely claimed the size of the crowd he addressed on Jan. 6, 2021 – the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol – was as large as those who packed the National Mall in Washington for Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.
"We actually had more people," Trump said. "But I'm ok with it, because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King."
Echoing a recent criticism from his campaign, Trump criticized Harris for not doing a press interview since launching her campaign.
"She can't do an interview. She's barely competent," Trump said, later again calling her "nasty," a go-to line that he often uses to disparage female critics.
Trump has conducted a steady stream of media interviews, though they are usually with friendly, right-leaning outlets and reporters. On Wednesday, he called into the "Fox & Friends" morning program and took questions from the program's hosts.
Harris and Walz were meeting with auto workers in Detroit on Aug.8, following the United Auto Workers union's endorsement of their candidacy, as part of a push to mobilize blue-collar workers in key battleground states.
The Harris campaign canceled events on Aug.8 in North Carolina and on Aug.9 in Georgia, where Tropical Storm Debby is bringing heavy rain and dangerous flooding. The Democrats will head to Arizona and Nevada later this week, visiting two more swing states likely to play a key role in the Nov. 5 election.
Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, also canceled campaign events in North Carolina on Aug. 8 due to the storm. He has spent the last few days trailing Harris and Walz around the country, an unusual move intended to provide a "contrast," he told reporters on Aug.7.
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