Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, and this ain’t your grandfather’s election anymore.
If Donald Trump figured his usual petulance was going to put new Democratic ticket-topper Kamala Harris on the backfoot, the 78-year old ex-president might want to think again. In her first big rally as the nominee, the vice president called out the three-time Republican presidential candidate to keep his word about the ABC News-hosted debate set for September 10 that he had previously agreed to do against Biden.
“So the momentum in this race is shifting, and there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it,” the veep and presumptive Democratic nominee told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 10,000 just now in Atlanta as polls have Harris tied and even ahead of Trump a week into her White House bid. ‘So last week, you may have seen, he pulled out of the debate in September he had previously agreed to,” Harris added to laughs from the Georgia audience.
Mocking Trump as a chicken and the rhetoric from Trump and running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as “just plain weird,” Harris put her opponent on notice to the world with the political equivalent of a sidewinder.
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“Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage,” the VP said with maximum precision. “As the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face!”
With Megan Thee Stallion, Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in attendance, the crowd at the Georgia State Convocation Center went nuts.
That reaction to Harris’ challenge was seen live on CNN and MSNBC, as well as the BBC. However, if you were watching the MAGA-friendly Fox News, you would have seen none of it. Over on the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet, Laura Ingraham was slamming law enforcement for its investigation into the social media accounts of Thomas Crooks, the 21-year-old who tried to shoot Trump at a July 13 rally in Butler, PA.
The Fox host also had more of her pre-recorded sit-down with Trump. An interview on Monday, Trump was shown telling Ingraham that he “probably” will face off against Harris in the fall, but he “can also make a case for not doing it.” When Ingraham tried to press Trump on getting in the ring with the vice president, the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host replied he didn’t want to “reward fake news” like ABC or make them “rich.”
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Up against a vert different candidate than the stumbling President Biden he took on back on June 27 on CNN, it is unsure if Trump will go face-to-face with Harris in a month. What is sure is that Trump will be in the Georgia State Convocation Center this weekend for a rally of his own. Whether he packs ’em in like Harris did remains to be seen.
Armando Tinoco contributed to this report
