Looking to recapture campaign attention and blunt a surge of support and momentum for Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump fielded questions Thursday at a hastily called news conference during which he repeatedly attacked the Democratic ticket, made numerous false and misleading statements and agreed to a September debate hosted by ABC News that he had backed out of last week. Trump also proposed two other debates next month.
Trump and his campaign have criticized Harris for not holding any press conferences or conducting formal interviews with the media since joining the race more than two weeks ago. Trump’s hastily arranged Mar-a-Lago press conference, announced Thursday morning, was clearly meant to draw a contrast, though it was the former president’s first such event in months and his first public appearance since Harris locked up the Democratic nomination earlier this week. Trump has reportedly been “unsettled” and “increasingly upset” about Harris’s rise in the polls and often glowing media coverage.
The race has shifted dramatically in the days since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate, with polls showing she has erased the advantage Trump held nationally and has expanded the map in battleground states. The latest evidence: The Cook Political Report changed its ratings for Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.” The Cook analysts now say it’s anyone’s race overall: "Things look a lot better for Democrats today than they did a few weeks ago, but Trump is looking stronger now than he did in 2020. This is a Toss Up."
Yet Trump argued Thursday that little had changed in the race, and he claimed that Harris isn’t as smart or as competent as Biden. “I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all,” Trump insisted. “It’s the same policies — open borders, weak on crime.” He later added: “It's possible that I won't do as well with black women, but I do seem to be doing very well with other segments, extremely well.”
In often rambling remarks — watch or read them here — Trump said he would debate Harris on September 10, a debate previously scheduled against Biden. And he proposed two more debates, a September 4 event hosted by Fox News and one on NBC on September 25.
Trump also claimed that the country could be headed toward an economic depression and World War III and he again slammed Harris and her chosen running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as “radical left” leaders. He also touted his proposals to eliminate income taxes on tips and Social Security benefits, adding that he would not raise the Social Security retirement age. And he criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying that the Fed has been a “little bit too early and a little bit too late” in adjusting interest rates.
Trump has previously indicated that he would not fire Powell if he becomes president again. But on Thursday he suggested that presidents should have some say on monetary policy and interest rates, arguing against the traditional independence of the Federal Reserve’s policymakers. “I was very successful,” Trump said. “And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.”
The former president also hit on some other familiar themes. He complained about media coverage of the crowd size at Harris rallies, downplaying the number of attendees she has drawn. “Nobody says about crowd size with me, but she has 1,000 people or 1,500 people and they say, ‘Oh, the enthusiasm is back.’ No, no, the enthusiasm is with me and the Republican Party because they want to stop crime. They want to stop people from pouring into our country, from places unknown and from countries unknown, from countries that nobody ever heard of. That's where the enthusiasm.”
And after Biden said in an interview with CBS News that he was “not confident at all” that there wouldn’t be violence if Trump loses in November, Trump said he expected a peaceful transfer of power next year, though he also claimed that the 2020 transfer was peaceful. “I just hope we're going to have honest elections,” he said.