Kamala Harris’ campaign stepped up its mockery of “coward” Donald Trump on Friday for skipping the new presidential debate, with the Democratic nominee telling her Republican rival she owes it to voters to face her again.
The former US president announced on Thursday that there would be no third debate. Two days earlier, a tense meeting with Harris in Philadelphia had sparked controversy after she provoked the president on a range of topics, including the number of people attending her rallies.
In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump cited fictitious polls and used a bizarre boxing analogy of a defeated boxer demanding a rematch to claim he was the winner.
This drew a derisive response from the Harris campaign, with campaign manager David Plouffe saying on Twitter that the campaign had “finally found his spirit animal: chicken.”
On Friday, the Harris campaign stepped up the pressure, with a memo from press secretary Ian Sams saying Trump should be held accountable for refusing to answer questions during the debate about whether he would veto a nationwide abortion ban or whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia.
“The debate was certainly a disaster for Trump, but these answers are simply harmful. Under almost any other circumstances, any one of these answers would have been likely to set off a multi-day media crisis for a candidate. Taken together, they are a complete disaster,” Sams wrote.
“Trump must be held accountable for these positions.”
Meanwhile, Harris has continued to push for the pair to meet again for what would be their second presidential meeting and third debate following Joe Biden’s crushing defeat in June’s election and his decision to abandon his reelection bid.
“The vice president is clear that he believes there should be one more debate and does not believe these are his last words,” Harris spokesman Brian Fallon told Politico. “He is still processing his feelings after his crushing defeat on Tuesday night.”
During the debate, Trump missed the opportunity to talk about immigration, his special area of expertise, and instead made a random and unfounded claim that Haitian immigrants were eating residents’ cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio – a claim that was repeated by some senior Republicans after the debate.
Asked by The Associated Press about Trump’s failure to press Harris on policy issues, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said “frankly, we could have done better.”
He said further talks would be “beneficial,” adding: “I don’t think we adequately discussed the substance of our differences. I hope that further discussions will take place.”
Harris is expected to give more details about this week’s debates later on Friday in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as part of an “aggressive campaign” in battleground states that will determine the outcome of November’s election.
At two raucous rallies in North Carolina on Thursday, she challenged Trump again to face off against him. “We have an obligation to our voters to do that, because this is what matters … what’s at stake in this election couldn’t be more important,” she told a crowd estimated at 17,000 in Greensboro.
Trump continued his campaigning on Friday with a news conference in Los Angeles. Three days after the Philadelphia debate, the Republican candidate is still facing criticism for falsely claiming that immigrants eat pet animals, with some supporters blaming the influence of conspiracy theorist and right-wing extremist Laura Loomer.
“They’re eating dogs, they’re eating people who come in, they’re eating cats,” Trump alleged during the debate. “They’re eating the pets of the people who live there. This is what’s going on in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Trump drew criticism for inviting Loomer, who has called the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States an “insider job,” to accompany him to Wednesday’s 9/11 memorial service. Loomer was also reportedly part of Trump’s debate preparation team.
The Semaphore website cited anonymous sources close to the Trump campaign who said they were “100 percent” concerned about Loomer’s influence over Trump.
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