(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a press conference Thursday at his Bedminster golf course — his second press conference in a week — as the campaign continues to put the pressure on Vice President Kamala Harris to hold a robust media availability.
“It has been 24 days and Kamala Harris continues to duck and hide from the media — no interviews and no press conferences since she announced,” said communications director Steven Cheung in a statement.
The press conference comes following one that Trump held at his Mar-a-Lago estate last Thursday, fielding questions for more than an hour on a range of topics including his recent attacks on Harris, immigration and reproductive rights. During the long and, at times, rambling press conference, Trump often pushed false claims on several topics, including the outcome of the 2020 election and size of the crowd at his Jan. 6, 2021 rally before the U.S. Capitol attack.
Trump’s recent press conferences are part of the campaign’s attempt to draw a contrast between the two candidates — going after Harris’ intelligence in the process.
“She hasn’t done an interview — she can’t do an interview,” Trump claimed during his Mar-a-Lago press conference last week.
He added that he “look[s] forward to the debates” as a way to “set the record straight.”
The Harris campaign has been using Trump’s press conferences to highlight flubs he has made and criticize policies he has advocated for.
“Trump did the only thing he knows how to do — he went out and lied, made up stories, mixed up dates, attacked the media, and, overall, reminded Americans that he is a deeply unwell man,” the Harris campaign said in a statement reacting to Trump’s press conference.
During her time out on the campaign trial since announcing her White House bid, Harris has held a few small gaggles with reporters aboard Air Force Two and answered a few shouted questions; however, her campaign claims she will participate in a sit-down interview before the end of the month.
“We will commit to directly engage with the voters that are actually gonna decide this election and that is gonna be complete with rallies, with sit-down interviews, with press conferences, with all the digital assets we have at our disposal,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign, said on CNN Wednesday when pressed multiple times to commit to press conferences and media interviews.
Though she hasn’t made herself as available to the media as the former president, Harris did spend the week with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, crisscrossing the country visiting battleground states.
Trump just visited the solidly conservative state of Montana to stump for GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy last week, but is spending this week in two battleground states: North Carolina to deliver an economic speech and is also planning on holding a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.
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