Kamala Harris’s campaign on Saturday labelled Donald Trump “scared” after he proposed changing the schedule of the presidential debate ahead of a rally in Georgia where he will try to halt the vice president’s growing momentum in her bid to become America’s first female president.
In a post late night on his Truth social app, Trump said he was willing to debate Harris on the conservative Fox News network on September 4, while he refused to participate in a previously scheduled debate on ABC.
Trump floated the idea before heading to a rally in Atlanta, where he will gather supporters in the same arena where Harris addressed a cheering crowd of about 10,000 on Tuesday.
Trump said he had “agreed” with Fox on plans for a debate. And he said it would take place in Pennsylvania – a key swing state in the US presidential election system – in front of a live audience.
The Harris campaign dismissed it as a “game.”
“Donald Trump is scared and trying to back out of a debate he’s already agreed to and is heading straight to Fox News,” Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement. “He … should attend the debate he’s already committed to on September 10.”
The offer to take on Harris on a network he has long supported was Trump’s latest attempt to regain the initiative in a campaign that had been entirely focused on his reelection bid against 81-year-old Joe Biden until he dramatically withdrew his re-election campaign on July 21.
Since then, Harris, 59, has reenergized the Democratic base almost overnight.
He has ramped up donations, reunited the team behind Barack Obama’s two historic electoral victories, and neutralised the strong lead the 78-year-old Trump had built over Biden in opinion polls.
On Friday, he received the official Democratic nomination with nearly unanimous party support.
Harris is expected to announce her vice presidential candidate soon, with Josh Shapiro, the popular governor of the key state of Pennsylvania, a frontrunner. On Tuesday, she is set to begin a nationwide tour with her yet-to-be-named running mate.
Rally in the war zone
Late Saturday evening, Trump will be joined by his own vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance, at a rally in Georgia – another crucial state that will help decide who gets a majority in the Electoral College on November 5.
Trump lost to Biden there by a slim margin in 2020 and the state was at the center of his unprecedented efforts to overturn the election results and refuse to accept defeat.
The size of Harris’s rally on Tuesday was a warning sign for the Trump campaign, which has long touted its ability to draw thousands of enthusiastic supporters, in contrast to Biden’s typically smaller crowds.
The situation is a remarkable shift in a campaign where Trump appeared to be increasing his strength while Biden — hurt by a catastrophic debate performance in June and growing voter concerns over his mental acuity — continued to fall behind.
Harris’s rapid entry has rattled the Trump campaign — and Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in US history.
In the changed scenario, Harris is vying to become the first female president and the first president of Black and Indian biracial heritage.
Trump stunned everyone this week by claiming at a conference of black reporters that Harris, who has stayed connected to her black roots all her life, was just pretending.
“Her heritage has always been Indian and she was just promoting her Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until many years ago, but then she came out as black and now she wants to be known as black,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
