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PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump recommitted to debating Vice President Kamala Harris after recently backing out, holding a lengthy news conference Thursday in which he taunted his new rival, boasted of his crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, and lashed out at questions about the enthusiasm her campaign has been generating.
As the Republican presidential nominee addressed reporters at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate, ABC announced that Trump and Harris, the Democratic nominee, have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate, setting up a widely anticipated faceoff in an already unparalleled election. Trump said he had proposed three debates with three television networks in September.
Trump again wrongly insisted there had been a “peaceful transfer” of power in 2021 and renewed attacks on Republican rivals like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump has harshly criticized since Kemp refused to go along with his false theories of election fraud.
In taking questions from reporters for more than an hour, Trump tried to draw a contrast with Harris, who has not held a news conference since President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race.
Trump's decision to go on ABC sets up a high-stakes moment in an election where Biden's catastrophic performance in the last debate set in motion his withdrawal.
Just five days earlier, he had declared he would not debate on ABC and said his agreement with the network had been “terminated.” He wrote on his social media site that if Harris wouldn’t appear on Fox News on Sept. 4 instead, “I won’t see her at all.”
On Thursday, he announced a change of heart — and tried to pressure Harris to agree to two more September debates on Fox and on NBC.
Asked what he will do if a Harris only agrees to the ABC debate, he said: “I don’t know how that’s gonna work out. We’d like to do three debates. We think we should do three debates.”
A few hours after the news conference, Harris told reporters she was "glad he has finally committed” to debate her on ABC on Sept. 10, the date that had originally been set for a Biden faceoff against Trump and which her campaign has long stuck to.
“I'm looking forward to it and hope he shows up,” she said.
Thursday's event was Trump's first public appearance since Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Trump called Walz a “radical left man.”
“Between her and him, there’s never been anything like this,” Trump said. “There’s certainly never been anybody so liberal like these two.”
He repeatedly suggested Harris was not intelligent enough to debate him. Harris, for her part, has tried to goad Trump into debating and told an audience in Atlanta recently that if he had anything to say about her, he should " say it to my face.”
Trump grew visibly perturbed when pressed on Harris’ crowds and newfound Democratic enthusiasm, dismissing a question about his lighter campaign schedule as “stupid.”
Trump says he has not “recalibrated” his campaign despite facing a new opponent, a dynamic some Republican strategists have quietly complained about.
When asked what assets Harris possessed, Trump said: “She’s a woman. She represents certain groups of people.”
Trump has repeatedly — and falsely — accused Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, of previously downplaying that she is Black.
Trump recognized some changing patterns with his new opponent, acknowledging he may not be as popular with Black women, one of Democrats’ key voting blocs. He expressed a lot of confidence in his support from Black men.
“It could be I’ll be affected somewhat with Black females but we’re really doing well,” he said. “And I think ultimately they’ll like me better because I’m going to give them security, safety and jobs. I’m going to give them a good economy.”
Trump campaign officials told reporters ahead of the news conference they believe Harris is currently enjoying a honeymoon period.
They argued the fundamentals of the race have not changed and the mood of the country remains sour, with Americans frustrated by the state of the economy, the administration and the country’s directions. They say that while Harris has energized the Democratic base, she will not be able to win over Republicans or convert independents or the persuadable voters they are focused on targeting.
Trump’s campaign plans to spend the next three months hammering Harris as “failed, weak and dangerously liberal,” blaming her for every one of the the Biden administration’s unpopular policies and mocking her mannerisms and speaking style.
Trump suggested abortion will not be a major issue in the campaign and the outcome in November.
He insisted that the matter “has become much less of an issue” since the Supreme Court ended the federal constitutional right to abortion services and returned control of the matter to state governments. But the issue is widely seen as a general election liability, and Trump named states such as Ohio and Kansas that have since voted to protect abortion rights.
Trump also said he expected Florida “will go in a little more liberal way than people thought” when it votes to repeal an abortion ban later this year, but he did not respond to questions asking how he would vote.
Trump argued that Democrats, Republicans and “everybody” are pleased with the results of the 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Trump’s actions within the GOP, however, suggest he knows that Democrats already have capitalized on Republican opposition to abortion rights and could do so again this fall. Trump single-handedly ensured that the Republican Party platform adopted at the 2024 convention in Milwaukee does not call for a national ban on abortion, and he has said repeatedly that hardliners in the party could cost the GOP in November.
The court’s decision, issued months ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, is widely cited as a reason that Democrats fared much better than expected in House and Senate contests. And Democrats have hammered Trump in paid advertisements blaming him and the justices he appointed for ending Roe.
Trump falsely claimed during the press conference that “nobody was killed on Jan. 6,” the date in 2021 when pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol amid Congress’ effort to certify Biden's 2020 election victory after Trump refused to concede.
Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot that breached the building.
To be sure, Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who first attended a rally outside the White House that day, then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police and entered the building.
“I think those people were treated very badly. When you compare it to other things that took place in this country where a lot of people were killed,” Trump said Thursday.
He also falsely claimed more people attended his speech at a “Stop the Steal” rally before the riot than the famous March on Washington in 1963, the iconic event at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Trump was asked about Biden's comments in a CBS interview that he was “not confident” there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump were to lose.
“He should have brought this up at the debate if he had a problem. Of course there'll be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time.”
While Biden was inaugurated on schedule, Washington was on lockdown that day, with the streets patrolled by military personnel and domestic police two weeks after Trump’s supporters had attacked the Capitol. ___
Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Darlene Superville in Romulus, Mich. contributed to this report.