Trump recommits to Sept. 10 debate at press conference, lashes out at Harris | News, Sports, Employment

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump held an hourlong news conference Wednesday in which he again pledged to debate Vice President Kamala Harris and mocked her, while repeating old falsehoods and batting away questions about the enthusiasm for his campaign. As Trump addressed reporters at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate, ABC reported that Trump and Harris, the Democratic nominee, had agreed to a Sept. 10 presidential debate, setting up a widely anticipated showdown in an already unprecedented presidential election. Trump said he had proposed three presidential debates with three television networks in September. Trump again insisted there had been a debate “peaceful transfer of power” In 2021, Trump again attacked Republican rivals like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom he harshly criticized since Kemp refused to support his false theories of election fraud. But in answering more than a dozen questions from reporters, Trump sought to draw a contrast with Harris, who has not held a news conference since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Another key moment is set in the elections
Trump’s decision to appear on ABC, days after posting on his social media account that he would not appear on the network, sets the stage for a highly anticipated moment in an election in which Biden’s disastrous performance in the final debate set in motion his withdrawal.
“I think it is very important to have debates,” Trump said it on Thursday. “I look forward to the debates because I think we need to set the record straight.”
Harris’ campaign had no immediate comment. Thursday’s event was Trump’s first public appearance since Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Trump called Walz a “a man of the radical left.”
“There has never been anything like this between her and him” Trump said. “There has certainly never been anyone as liberal as these two.”
He repeatedly suggested that Harris was not smart enough to debate him. Harris, for her part, has tried to goad Trump into debate and recently told an audience in Atlanta that if he had anything to say about her, he should ” Say it to my face.”
Trump was visibly shaken when asked about the crowds surrounding Harris and the newfound Democratic enthusiasm, and dismissed a question about his lighter campaign agenda as stupid. Trump says he hasn’t “recalibrated” Her campaign, despite facing a new opponent, is a dynamic that some Republican strategists have quietly complained about. Asked what assets Harris possessed, Trump said: “She is a woman. She represents certain groups of people.”
Trump has repeatedly — and falsely — accused Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, of downplaying her blackness in the past.
Trump answers questions about abortion
Trump suggested that abortion will not be a major issue in the campaign and the outcome in November. He insisted that the issue “it has become much less of a problem” Since the Supreme Court ended the federal constitutional right to abortion services and returned control of the matter to state governments, the issue is widely seen as a general election liability, and Trump cited states like Ohio and Kansas that have since voted to protect abortion rights. Trump also said he hoped Florida would “It will be a little more liberal than people thought” when he votes to repeal the abortion ban later this year, but he did not respond to questions about how he would vote. Trump argued that Democrats, Republicans and “all” Republicans are pleased with the results of the 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. But Trump’s actions within the GOP suggest he knows Democrats have already capitalized on Republican opposition to abortion rights and could do so again this fall. Trump single-handedly ensured that the GOP platform adopted at the 2024 convention in Milwaukee did not call for a national abortion ban, and he has repeatedly said that hard-liners in the party could cost the GOP in November. The court’s decision, issued months before the 2022 midterm elections, is widely cited as a reason Democrats fared much better than expected in House and Senate races. And Democrats have lashed out at Trump in paid ads blaming him and the justices he appointed for overturning Roe.
Trump makes false claims again on January 6
Donald Trump falsely claimed during the press conference that “Nobody died on January 6th” The date in 2021 when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol amid congressional efforts to certify Biden’s 2020 election victory. Ashli ​​Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed over a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot that broke into the building. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death in lamenting the treatment of those who first attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched on the Capitol, many of whom scuffled with police and entered the building.
“I think that these people were treated very badly. If we compare it with other things that happened in this country, where many people were killed,” Trump said Thursday, adding: “Nobody died on January 6th.”
He also falsely claimed that he attracted more people to his speech in a “Stop the theft” speech before the riots that famous March on Washington in 1963, the iconic event in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” Speech. ___ Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.