Donald Trump on Thursday proposed three debates with Kamala Harris this fall, all taking place in the month of September.
The campaign proposed Fox News hosting one on September 4; ABC hosting one on September 10; and NBC on September 25.
‘We have those three dates and those networks. They’re very anxiously awaiting that date and those dates,’ Trump said at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
The ABC debate was already on the calendar – originally meant to be between Trump and President Joe Biden. Now it will be between Trump and Harris.
The former president held a rambling back-and-forth with reporters at his Palm Beach home where he repeatedly slammed Harris, expressed sympathy for Joe Biden, and claimed he was leading in the polls.
Donald Trump proposed three debates with Kamala Harris
Trump did not say if his team had reached out to Harris’ team with their debate proposal. The former president did concede she still has to agree to them.
‘I don’t know if they’re gonna agree,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t done an interview.’
Trump and his team have been slamming Harris for not doing a media interview since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and she became the Democratic nominee.
‘I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight,’ he said.
He also said that Harris is ‘not smart enough to do a news conference.’
‘And I’m sorry, we need smart people to lead this country.’
Trump had cancelled the Sept. 10 with ABC News because he had originally been set to do with Biden. Harris had agreed to that debate once she replaced Biden.
Trump is also suing ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos for defamation and called the active litigation a ‘conflict of interest.’
But now the former president is now agreeing to meet on the debate stage. It comes as Harris has made up significant ground in the polls. She led Trump in a new national poll out on Thursday and runs neck-and-neck with him in several battleground states.
Meanwhile, Trump spent much of his time attacking Harris, his Democratic rival.
He dubbed her the ‘first loser’ and said repeatedly she had gotten ‘no votes.’
He appears to be referring to the 2020 Democratic primary contest. Harris, who was running for president at the time, dropped out of the race before the first nominating contest, which at that time was Iowa’s caucuses. Her campaign had been plagued by infighting and bad management.
‘She was the first loser,’ he said. ‘She was the first one to quit, and she quit. She had no votes, no support, and she was a bad debater, by the way, very bad debater.’
Donald Trump gave Kamala Harris a new nickname: ‘first loser’
Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago
He also called her the ‘the worst vice president in the history of our country – the most unpopular vice president’ and indicated she was picked as the party nominee for ‘being politically correct.’
In an interview with black journalists last week, Trump questioned whether Harris – who has a black father and South Asian mother – was black.
‘She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?’ he said at the event.
Trump had been making gains with black voters when Biden was on the ticket. Harris is taking the votes back and the former president tried to shrug that off.
‘I seem to be doing very well with Black males. This is according to polls, as you know. It’s possible that I won’t do as well with Black women, but I do seem to doing very well with other segments – extremely well with Hispanics,’ he said.
He also defended Biden, his former rival, saying he was sure the president wasn’t happy about his decision to exit the race.
‘I don’t know if he’s happy about that decision,’ he said. ‘The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden. And I’m no Biden fan. But I’ll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, you’re looking at they took the presidency away.’
‘He’s a very angry man right now. I can tell you that.’
