Donald Trump proposed three September debates against Kamala Harris Thursday as he sought to wrest back some of the attention lavished on his rival since her blockbuster entry into the US presidential election.
Harris has ignited the Democratic ticket in the last 18 days, pulling in record fundraising and obliterating the Republican ex-president's polling lead to open up a much broader path to victory than her party would dare to have hoped for just a month ago.
The country's first female, Black and South Asian vice president heads into her party's national convention in Chicago in mid-August on the back of a series of packed rallies that have won plaudits for a positive message that has reenergized the Democratic base.
Meanwhile Trump -- who addressed journalists at his oceanfront estate in Florida -- has found himself on unfamiliar ground as something of a bystander, eclipsed by Harris's rise as he has scaled back his own campaigning.
"I hope she agrees," Trump told journalists, after he said he had arranged debates with television networks on September 4, 10 and 25.
Trump revived a series of familiar attacks on his opponent -- repeatedly questioning the intelligence of the former state attorney general and US senator, in an event punctuated by falsehoods.
- 'Same policies' -
Trump made untrue claims on all manner of topics around the election and his record in office, from the price of gasoline to his crowd sizes, US military deaths in Afghanistan and the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by his supporters.
He assured reporters there would be a peaceful transfer of power after the November 5 vote -- but questioned whether the election would be honest and claimed that the last transfer had been peaceful, despite the deadly Capitol riot.
Trump also rejected a suggestion that he would need to recalibrate his campaign to take account of his new opponent after Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the ticket on July 21.
"It's the same policies, open borders, weak on crime. She is, I think, she's worse than Biden," he said.
The rival campaigns had sparred over Trump backing out of a previously scheduled ABC presidential debate on September 10. The network said Thursday both candidates have now agreed to the face off.
Trump-friendly Fox News would host the first of the three debates while NBC would take the final slot. There was no immediate word those dates from the Harris campaign.
The former president's debate with a dismally performing Biden in June spelled the end of the president's reelection campaign, but Trump had been reluctant to face Harris on neutral territory.
The 78-year-old has been struggling to come up with effective attack lines to define Harris while delivering a series of increasingly confounding nicknames for his opponent.
- 'True strength' -
The news conference was his first public appearance since Harris -- a generation younger than Trump at 59 -- announced running mate Tim Walz and embarked on a tour of closely fought election battlegrounds.
She and Walz appeared Thursday in Michigan ahead of a trip to the racially diverse "Sun Belt" states of Arizona and Nevada for rallies on Friday and Saturday.
"The true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down. It's based on who you lift up," she told a crowd of around 170 supporters in Detroit, at a much smaller event than her recent arena rallies.
Sabato's Crystal Ball, a leading election forecaster, shifted three of its ratings in favor of Democrats on Wednesday, moving Minnesota and New Hampshire from "leans Democratic" to "likely Democratic" and Georgia from "leans Republican" to "toss-up."
Meanwhile Marquette University Law School released a nationwide survey showing that, among likely voters, Harris now leads Trump by six points -- 53 percent to 47 percent.
Despite her intensive campaign schedule, Harris has taken almost no questions from reporters since entering the race and Trump had been seeking to turn her lack of media exposure into an election issue even before Thursday's news conference.
"She hasn't done an interview -- she can't do an interview, she's barely competent... But I look forward to the debates, because I think we have to set the record straight," he said in Florida.
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