HARRISBURG — Former President Donald Trump disputed polls showing a tight race against Vice President Kamala Harris and bemoaned the terms of the upcoming debate during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday in Pennsylvania.
During questioning by Fox News’ warm Sean Hannity before cheering supporters in Harrisburg, the Republican presidential candidate also repeated his promise to hold mass deportation operation if she is re-elected and attacks Harris for her previous stance on banning the natural gas extraction technique known as fracking.
Trump agreed to the interview, which was billed as a meeting with residents but did not include questions from the audience, after Harris declined his offer for a Fox News debate later that day. He said Wednesday that he would prefer to meet Harris onstage.
“I think he’s a nice guy, but I would prefer a debate,” Trump said of Hannity. “But this is the best we could do, Sean.”
But Trump spent part of Wednesday’s hour criticizing details of the 90-minute debate campaigns agreed, in Philadelphia on September 10 on ABC.
He called ABC News “the most dishonest, meanest, most vile network,” claiming the network deliberately released tender polls ahead of the 2016 election to depress turnout, and added that without evidence, executives would ask Harris questions ahead of the event.
Hannity said he should lead the debate.
Walz meets with volunteers in Lancaster during first solo campaign trip to Pennsylvania
Trump also claimed that the family of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, had endorsed him. Charles Herbster, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor of Nebraska in 2022, posted a photo of a group of Walz’s cousins wearing Trump T-shirts.
Walz’s sister, Sandy Dietrich, he said The Associated Press reports that the family did not maintain particularly close ties with this branch of government and that the woman will vote for candidates who included her brother.
Walz’s brother, Jeff Walz, posted disparaging remarks about the Minnesota governor on Facebook but later told NewsNation he would not comment further on the matter.
Bad polls
Hannity’s appearance on Wednesday noted that polls show a close race, but Trump said the enthusiasm among his supporters makes that seem unlikely.
“I’ve heard the polls are very close and we have a slight lead,” he said. “I just find it hard to believe because they were so bad in the first place.”
Trump has sought to delegitimize polls and even election results that did not show him ahead, including during the 2020 campaign, when he said he could only lose by fraud. After losing to Biden, he made a series of false claims of fraud that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
He said Wednesday that he did well in 2016, when he won the election, but “significantly better” in 2020, which he lost. The enthusiasm for the current campaign outweighs both, he said.
Trump also complained that Harris’ entry into the race, after President Joe Biden withdrew following a destitute debate performance in June, was a “coup” against Biden.
Immigration Claims
Trump devoted much of the meeting to talking about immigration, an issue he has emphasized throughout his political career.
He repeated claims, without evidence, that immigrants entering the country illegally come mainly from prisons and “mental asylums” and that terrorists enter the country through the southern border.
He described immigrants as a threat to public safety and social programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
“These people are so evil,” he said. “They are so dangerous. What they have done to our country is destroy it. And we cannot allow that to happen.”
He appeared to be referring to a viral claim that Venezuelan immigrants had “taken over” an apartment in Aurora, Colorado. The building’s residents have at issue this description.
Fracking and Pennsylvania
Speaking before an audience of supporters at the Pennsylvania state capitol, Trump also attacked Harris for her past stance on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a technique for extracting natural gas that is a major industry in the state.
Harris said during her brief campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination that she supports ending fracking. Trump and Hannity brought it up several times Wednesday, with Trump saying it should disqualify her from voting in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes will be crucial to deciding the election.
“You have no choice,” he said. “You have to vote for me, even if you don’t like me.”
Harris said this year she does not support a ban on fracking.
More coming soon
The event was billed as a meeting with locals, and Hannity mentioned several times that the audience would be taking questions, but no pro-Trump audience members were given the opportunity to ask a question.
During the interview, Hannity appreciated the presence of Dave McCormick, Republican rival to Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Casey in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, in the crowd.
Hannity indicated at the end of the broadcast that the taping would continue with McCormick asking the “first question” and would air Thursday night. In an email after the event, Fox News spokeswoman Sofie Watson said the audience question portion of the event would air “later this week.”
