Former President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed three debates next month with Vice President Kamala Harris and said he will defeat the “barely competent” Democratic nominee who took over the ticket for President Biden.
Mr. Trump said Ms. Harris did not receive any votes in the 2020 Democratic primary and predicted that he remains on track for victory, despite polls showing a tight race heading into November.
“We were given Joe Biden and now we’re given somebody else,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference from his Florida estate at Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Trump is trying to blunt Ms. Harris’s momentum and prove that he — unlike his Democratic opponent — is willing to face the media.
The former president said he is ready to debate Ms. Harris on Fox News, ABC and NBC on Sept. 4, 10 and 25, and is waiting for her to agree to terms. ABC News said both candidates have agreed to the original debate set for Sept. 10.
“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Mr. Trump said. “She hasn’t done an interview. She can’t do an interview. She’s barely competent.”
The GOP nominee had agreed to debate Mr. Biden on Sept. 10 on ABC but then backed out after Mr. Biden quit the race, and sought to debate Ms. Harris on Fox instead.
Despite Mr. Biden dropping out after top Democrats told him he couldn’t win, Mr. Trump said he wanted to face Ms. Harris, anyway, and characterized her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as lax on public safety and obsessed about transgender issues.
He said his rivals are ill-prepared to deal with threats at home and abroad.
“I think that our country right now is in the most dangerous position it’s ever been from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint,” Mr. Trump said, adding that current leadership has “no clue” how to handle them.
Mr. Trump pointed to Ms. Harris’s failed 2020 presidential bid as evidence.
“She never made it to Iowa,” he said. “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan. He had the right to run, and they took it away.”
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The former president said he is not recalibrating his strategy now that Ms. Harris is the nominee. He said he is doing well with “Black males” and that White males are “way up,” and his crowd sizes remain large.
Mr. Trump said abortion — a potential liability for Republicans — has receded as a major issue because states can do what they want.
“I think that abortion has become much less of an issue, it’s a very small — I think it’s actually going to be a very small issue.”
And he ticked off a series of failures by the current administration, from the military withdrawal from Afghanistan to illegal immigration and declining quality of life in Ms. Harris’s home state of California.
“I think I’m going to do well with everybody,” Mr. Trump said.
Ms. Harris is crisscrossing the country with her new running mate and basking in the honeymoon glow of her nascent campaign following Mr. Biden’s decision to cede way to his younger political partner.
Ms. Harris has conspicuously avoided direct interaction with the media.
She received 52% support from registered voters in a nationwide poll released Thursday by Marquette Law School. Mr. Trump received 48% support.
Ms. Harris led Mr. Trump among likely voters, 53 to 47%, in the poll. A similar poll in May found Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden split evenly among all voters.
A recent AARP poll conducted by a bipartisan team in Georgia found Mr. Trump narrowly leading Ms. Harris, 46% to 44%, suggesting the Democratic nominee remains competitive in a state the GOP desperately wants to take back after squandering it to Mr. Biden in 2020.
“Georgia is a big win. It’s a big state,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump said he didn’t understand why his relationship with popular Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who wouldn’t overturn the 2020 election results in his state, fell apart.
“When you get somebody elected, they’re supposed to like you,” Mr. Trump said.
On the issues, Mr. Trump said if you’re Jewish or love Israel — and vote for the Democratic ticket — you “have to have your head examined,” given the Biden administration’s careful approach to supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his forces.
He defended his actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying he urged a crowd near the White House to act peacefully and patriotically ahead of the attack.
He boasted that his crowd that day may have exceeded the one that heard the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
“We actually had more people,” Mr. Trump said. “And I’m OK with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”
On the economy, Mr. Trump said he has better business instincts than the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, as the central bank figures out when or if to reduce interest rates and avoid a recession.
“I used to have it out with him … we get along fine,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump announced his press conference abruptly on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Thursday morning. He wanted the session to serve as a contrast to Ms. Harris.
“She can’t do a news conference, she doesn’t know how to do a news conference, she’s not smart enough to do a news conference,” Mr. Trump said. “She should be doing interviews. She doesn’t want to do interviews.”
Yet Stephanie Grisham, a former press secretary for Mr. Trump, said the former president seemed to be “panicking.”
“I’ve seen this play many times,” she said on X. “He thinks his team is failing him & no one can speak better/‘save’ his campaign/defend him but him. He hates the coverage Harris is getting & thinks only he can fix it.”
— Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.