In the ebb and flow of the closely contested 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are trying to one-up the other each day in reminding voters of the other’s perceived shortcomings.
Harris does not waste a moment of her campaign speeches before reminding voters, as she did Wednesday, that she was a long-time local and state prosecutor in California, the most populous U.S. state, who put convicted felons behind bars. She knows Trump’s “type,” Harris likes to say, noting that he is a convicted felon who has been found liable for millions of dollars in damages in civil business fraud and defamation cases.
On Thursday, it was Trump’s turn to zing Harris.
He announced an afternoon news conference — his first in months — at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. This came the day after his vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance, attacked Harris for not holding an open-ended news conference or sitting down for an interview with a media outlet in the 18 days since she became the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Harris has had fleeting exchanges with reporters who have been tracking her campaign but not engaged in a full question-and-answer session.
“Kamala refuses to do interviews because her team realizes she is unable to answer questions, much like [President Joe] Biden was not able to answer questions, but for different reasons,” Trump claimed on his Truth Social media platform.
“He is just plain ‘shot,’ and she is just plain ‘Incompetent,’” Trump said, calling her policies “catastrophic.”
Trump has been looking for ways to regain the attention of voters as Harris has dominated the news by becoming the Democrats’ standard bearer in the November 5 election. Then, this week, she announced that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would become her vice-presidential running mate.
The Harris-Walz ticket then embarked on a multistate visit to political battlegrounds that will play a pivotal role in determining who will take over the White House for a new four-year term starting next January. Trump stayed in Florida this week to raise more campaign funds.
Both campaigns canceled Thursday rallies in the mid-Atlantic state of North Carolina as Tropical Storm Debby raged across the region, leaving some towns and cities with significant flooding. Both campaigns are heading to the western U.S. for events on Friday evening.
It is not yet certain if the two will meet for a face-to-face debate.
Trump agreed to debate Biden, before he withdrew from the campaign, on ABC News on September 10, and Harris said she would honor that date with Trump.
But Trump then said he “terminated” that agreement when Biden ended his reelection bid. The former president said he was willing to debate Harris on September 4 on Fox News, where an array of conservative commentators want Trump to win the election.
But Harris did not agree to the Fox encounter, saying she would welcome his participation in the debate tentatively scheduled for September 10.
