ABC announced a September 10 discussion between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris.
Trump requested further debates on September 4 and 25 at a Palm Beach, Florida, news conference on Thursday.
He did not specify specifics, including whether there would be an audience, and it was unclear if his team gave Harris’s camp a proposal.
Trump had considered skipping the ABC debate, which was set before Vice President Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee less than three weeks ago.
The news conference was Trump’s first public appearance since Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her campaign partner on Tuesday.
Harris and Walz hosted rallies in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin this week, drawing tens of thousands of attendees, showing how her late arrival has energized Democrats.
Her fast climb has Trump’s team scrambling to adjust their messaging and plan. Harris appears to have cut Trump’s lead over Biden, according to polls.
Democrats have raised hundreds of millions from people and wealthy donors in weeks.
Trump denied changing his stance on Harris’s new challenge on Thursday.
Trump claimed Harris and Walz were poor candidates who were falling in the polls in a more than hour-long interview with reporters.
However, he lamented that he would not be able to challenge Biden in the election, indicating that the president was a victim of an unconstitutional scheme to defeat him on the Democratic ticket.
After losing the debate to Trump, Biden, 81, withdrew his re-election candidacy under pressure from fellow Democrats, fearful about his chances of winning on November 5.
“There were certainly a lot of familiar sort of rancorous remarks in this press conference about crowd size,” Reynolds remarked. When it was suggested that Kamala Harris was drawing significant crowds, Republican candidate Donald Trump sounded very agitated. His riff on that was lengthy.”
Trump criticized Harris on Thursday for not doing a news interview since her campaign began, echoing his campaign’s criticism.
“She cannot interview. She’s barely competent,” Trump said, calling her “nasty” again, a line he often uses to criticize women.
Trump has given several media interviews, usually to right-wing sites and reporters. He answered Fox & Friends morning questions on Wednesday.
After the United Auto Workers union endorsed Harris and Walz, they met with autoworkers in Detroit on Thursday to mobilize blue-collar workers in battleground states.
The Harris campaign canceled events in North Carolina and Georgia on Thursday and Friday due to Tropical Storm Debby’s heavy rain and floods. Later this week, Democrats will visit Arizona and Nevada, two more battleground states that could influence the election.
The storm also forced Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, to cancel campaign rallies in North Carolina on Thursday. His unique tactic to present a “contrast” was to follow Harris and Walz across the country for the past several days, he told reporters on Wednesday.
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