Vice President Kamala Harris had a succinct response when asked Thursday about Donald Trump’s rambling criticisms of her earlier in the day, telling journalists, “I was too busy talking to voters. I didn’t hear them.”
Harris had just wrapped up an event at a United Auto Workers union hall in Michigan when she approached members of the press near her plane at the Detroit Metro Airport tarmac. The vice president had been criticized in recent days by Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, for not interacting more with the media.
After first being asked about Trump reversing course by agreeing to meet her for a debate on ABC News next month, Harris still seemed to harbor some doubt about whether he will actually follow through.
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“I’m glad that he finally agreed to a debate. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope he shows up,” Harris said.
When asked a follow-up about why Trump withdrew from the debate weeks ago, Harris said, “I am beyond trying to speculate about how he thinks.”
Trump also claimed for the first time Thursday he would debate Harris Sept. 4 on Fox News and Sept. 25 on NBC. But the Harris campaign later told ABC News that she will not agree to the former, and any debates after the one on Sept. 10 depend on Trump’s presence there.
Moments later, Harris was asked about other points from Trump in his Mar-a-Lago press conference. The former president, for instance, harped about crowd sizes at his events after being confronted with the Harris campaign’s sizable draw in recent days, claiming, without evidence, that more people were present for his Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” speech than attended Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
Besides regurgitating his usual false claims of voter fraud and once again attacking Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, Trump also encouraged reporters to question Harris about her ethnicity—in effect doubling down on his racist comments last week before the National Association of Black Journalists.
Harris, who dismissed the comments shortly after they were made as “the same old show” from Trump, this time emphasized her scheduled event with the UAW when asked to comment.
“I was too busy talking to voters. I didn’t hear them,” she said.
Harris and running mate Tim Walz arrived in Arizona later Thursday in advance of a rally scheduled for Friday in Phoenix.
