After hours of Trump and Harris campaigning Agreed to the rules for them First Presidential Debate, Former President Donald J. Trump tried to cast doubt on whether the debate would be fair, downplayed his need to prepare and suggested he was more concerned about the networks hosting the debate than his opponent.
Speaking at a Fox News town hall Wednesday night, Mr. Trump insisted that ABC News, which will host next week’s debate in Philadelphia, was “dishonest,” even though he agreed months ago to allow the network to host the presidential debate.
Pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris’ longtime friendship with a senior executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, Mr. Trump asserted without evidence that Ms. Harris “will get the questions in advance.” The network announced agreed rules that no topics or questions would be provided for candidates or campaigns.
Mr. Trump’s attempts to question the integrity of the debate echoed a similar effort that preceded his fallout debate with President Biden in June that ended his exit from the presidential race. After taunting Mr. Biden for holding the debate “anytime, anywhere, anywhere,” Mr. Trump sought to play down any potential political fallout as the debate approaches by casting networks, moderators and rules as partisan.
Although he suggested next week’s debate would be biased against him, Mr Trump also tried to portray himself as unconcerned about his first head-to-head encounter with Ms Harris since becoming the Democratic nominee. He insisted that planning would only get him so far and that he would take the same approach to Ms. Harris that he did with Mr. Biden.
“I let her talk — I’ll let her talk,” Mr. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity, the moderator of the town hall. Mr. Trump, who has often mocked Ms. Harris’s intelligence and speaking style, added, “There are people who say Biden is smarter than he is. If so, we have a problem.”
Mr. Trump’s town hall, in front of an audience in Harrisburg, Pa., began with an interview with Mr. Hannity, a longtime Trump ally with whom the former president has been friends for years. Mr. Trump then answered five pre-screen questions from audience members, including Republican state Senate candidate David McCormick. Part of the interview aired Wednesday evening on Fox News, and audience questions are set to run Thursday evening.
For much of his speech, Mr. Trump repeated talking points from his rallies. Seated in Pennsylvania, a major natural gas producer, he vowed to increase oil and gas production, then again attacked Ms. Harris for calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, during her 2020 presidential campaign.
Although Ms. Harris has since said she no longer supports such a ban, Mr. Trump said Pennsylvania “can’t take this chance.” Both campaigns view battlefield conditions as critical to their paths to victory in November.
Mr. Trump continued to insist that other countries are deliberately sending violent criminals and the mentally ill across the border, a claim that there is no evidence to support, and he accused Ms. Harris of failing to stop the number of immigrants crossing illegally. .
“She was a border czar,” Mr. Trump said, using a misleading phrase that Republicans have used to describe Ms. Harris’ role in addressing the “root causes” of immigration.
Then, acknowledging that Ms. Harris was never formally given that title, Mr. Trump added that “even if you don’t want to use that word, she was in charge of the border.”
Mr. Trump continued to insist that if he had won in 2020 there would not have been conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a fictional claim that cannot be proven. As evidence, he cited praise for Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who critics say is leading his nation toward dictatorship.
Mr. Trump spent considerable time looking back when Mr. Biden was his opponent. Ms. Harris visited New Hampshire on Wednesday and Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Biden for his role in the Democratic National Committee’s decision to move the state from the top of the Democrats’ primary calendar.
“Who in New Hampshire would vote for this guy?” He asked, even though Mr. Biden would no longer be on the ballot there in November.
Mr. Trump was scheduled to stand for a town hall debate that he had proposed on Fox News as part of an effort to pull ABC News out of the debate that he had initially agreed to with Mr. Biden. The Harris campaign rejected his proposal, and Mr. Trump insisted on keeping his commitment to next Tuesday’s ABC debate in Philadelphia. Mr. Trump has also proposed a debate on NBC News later this month, to which Ms. Harris has not yet agreed.
The town hall on Fox was part of a larger effort by the Trump campaign to attack Ms. Harris to avoid media scrutiny. Mr. Trump and his allies have criticized her commitment to only one debate, the fact that she has not held a news conference since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee and her decision to wait a month before giving mainstream media interviews.
Although she participated in an interview last week on CNN, Trump’s allies criticized her for pitting her against her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
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