Former US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that it was “too late” to organize a new debate with his rival in the November 5 elections, Democrat Kamala Harris, who again challenged him to a second televised confrontation.
“The problem with organizing another debate is that it is simply too late, the elections have already started.“The Republican candidate declared at an election rally in North Carolina, referring to voting by mail, which has already begun in some states in the country.
Following a first debate on September 10, in which she was widely seen as dominating the discussion, Harris challenged her opponent again on Saturday and called on him to debate on CNN on October 23. The US election is on November 5.
“Vice President Harris is ready for another chance to share the stage with Donald Trump“Trump should have no problem embracing this debate,” campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)’ | Photo: AP
Trump again declined the invitation, though he acknowledged Saturday that he would like to debate for “entertainment value.”adding that while CNN had been “very fair” when it debated President Joe Biden in June, “they won’t be again.”
In the first debate on ABC, Harris managed to irritate her opponent on a number of sensitive issues: attendance at her rallies, her relationship with her former political allies and her international reputation, among others.
This did not stop Trump from claiming that he “won” the debate and attacking the impartiality of the two ABC journalists who moderated the meeting.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric
Trump’s final withdrawal from the second debate comes as some states have already begun votingin a race that is already expected to be tight in seven, including North Carolina.
There, Trump spoke to a crowd in Wilmington from behind bulletproof glass on Saturday, a move in response to an apparent second assassination attempt on him this week. The first was in July, when he was shot in the ear in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In his speech Saturday, Trump doubled down on the hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric that has anchored his campaign, again claiming without evidence that migrants are “attacking towns and cities across the Midwest.”
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)’ | Photo: AP
He also promised his voters that the United States would “get to Mars” before his eventual term ends.
The former president faces a new challenge in North Carolina after a report emerged Thursday that Trump-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson called himself a “black Nazi.”who made radical comments on a pornographic website more than a decade ago.
Robinson denounced the CNN report as “lurid tabloid lies.”
Head to head
With 45 days to go until the election, the outcome remains more uncertain than ever, with Trump and Harris neck and neck in several of the seven key states where everything will likely be decided.
The 78-year-old Republican won the state of North Carolina in his duel with Biden in 2020..
But Harris, her new rival, 59, is counting on African-Americans and young people, two constituencies motivated by her candidacy, to win there in November.
