Donald Trump definitively ruled out facing Kamala Harris in a new debate on Wednesday and redoubled his attacks against his Democratic rival during meetings in Pennsylvania one month before the presidential election in the United States.
“There will be no rematch!” wrote the Republican billionaire on his network, Truth Social, despite proposals from CNN and Fox News to broadcast a face-to-face between the two candidates. “Kamala clearly stated yesterday that she would not do anything different from Joe Biden, so there is no room for debate,” he added.
The tribune was destabilized by the vice-president during their only televised duel on September 10, according to most observers. Kamala Harris had tickled his ego on many subjects – participation in his meetings, the disaffection of his former political allies, his international reputation – preventing him from developing his vision for the country.
Donald Trump, however, repeatedly repeats that he won this debate. After multiple retreats, he puts an end to the suspense.
The former president preferred to carry out his attacks against Kamala Harris in front of crowds won over to his cause, in Pennsylvania. “She is incompetent, we cannot trust her and she is totally incapable of being president,” he criticized during a meeting in Scranton, the hometown of his successor in the White House Joe Biden .
“If Kamala is elected, your expenses will increase and your lights will go out,” assured the Republican, facing thousands of supporters wearing the famous red caps of his campaign.
Donald Trump also described the Democratic president, whom he largely dominated during their debate at the end of June, as a “pathetic” and “sad” man. “Someone told me I should be nicer,” the Republican said. “I don’t want to be nice.”
In this northeastern state which is one of the most contested in the presidential election, he also repeated his diatribes against migrants, claiming that the United States was being “poisoned” at the border with Mexico.
“Absolute horror film”
Meeting after meeting, Donald Trump paints an increasingly dark picture of an America ravaged, according to him, by migrants, galloping inflation and devastating self-righteousness. “Our country has just suffered four years of an absolute horror film, we cannot afford four more years,” he insisted again on Wednesday.
He then had to make a stop in another town in Pennsylvania, a state where he won narrowly in 2016 but where Joe Biden won in 2020. The blue-collar workers of this declining territory industrialists for many years, many have left the Democratic ship to join the Republican camp.
But Kamala Harris is counting on the major infrastructure projects launched by Joe Biden, which create jobs, and the support of unions to win them back.
The Democratic candidate will return to Pennsylvania on Monday, after the meeting scheduled for Thursday with one of the Democratic Party’s best emissaries: former President Barack Obama.
Trump au Madison Square Garden
At the end of the week, she must hold campaign meetings in Arizona and Nevada — two other states which will be decisive for the election, organized by indirect universal ballot.
On Wednesday, the vice-president described as “dangerous” and “unacceptable” the unfounded accusations hammered out in recent days by the Republican camp, and Donald Trump in the first place, on the management of hurricanes Helen and Milton by the federal government.
The two candidates remain neck and neck in polls in key states. And this, despite a series of unprecedented twists and turns in the campaign: the criminal conviction of Donald Trump, two assassination attempts targeting him, the withdrawal of the candidacy of current President Joe Biden and the entry into the running of Kamala Harris .
The two candidates for the White House are therefore plowing the ground to conquer the votes of undecided people. Beyond the key states, Donald Trump is also seeking to tickle the Democrats in their strongholds: he is organizing a meeting in California on Saturday – known to be very progressive – and announced on Wednesday that he was planning an event in the legendary Madison Square Garden venue. in New York.
According to the US elections project, some 2.5 million voters have already made their choice and slipped a ballot into the ballot box during early voting operations.
(afp)