The campaign of Kamala Harris on Friday stepped up its mockery of “chicken” Donald Trump for ducking out of another presidential debate, with the Democratic nominee telling her Republican rival he owes it to voters to face her again.
The former US president announced on Thursday “there will be no third debate”, two days after a floundering performance during their testy meeting in Philadelphia in which Harris baited him on a range of subjects, including the crowd size at his rallies.
Trump’s post to his Truth Social network insisted instead that he was the victor, citing imaginary polls and using a bizarre boxing analogy about a beaten prizefighter demanding a rematch.
It drew a derisive response from the Harris campaign, with chair David Plouffe stating in a tweet: “At long last we discover his spirit animal: The Chicken.”
On Friday, the Harris team stepped up the pressure. A memo from spokesperson Ian Sams said Trump should be held accountable for his refusal to answer questions during the debate about whether he would veto a national abortion ban or if he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia.
“The debate was a mess for Trump, yes. But these answers are simply toxic. In almost any other circumstance, any one of these answers might drive days of a media crisis for the candidate. Taken together, they are an unmitigated disaster,” Sams wrote.
“Trump should have to answer for these positions.”
Harris, meanwhile, continued to press for the pair to meet again in what would be their second meeting, and third debate of the presidential campaign following Joe Biden’s disastrous display in June that led to him to drop his re-election bid.
“The vice-president is clear she believes there should be another debate and we do not consider this to be the last word from him,” Brian Fallon, a spokesperson for Harris, told Politico. “[Trump] is just working through his feelings after losing very badly Tuesday night.”
The call was echoed by some senior Republicans following a debate in which Trump passed over an opportunity to talk about immigration, a perceived strong suit, to make unfounded, rambling claims about Haitian immigrants eating residents’ pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
Asked by the Associated Press about Trump’s failure to press Harris on policy issues, John Thune of South Dakota, the number two Senate Republican, said: “Frankly, it could have been done better.”
Another meeting, he said, would be “helpful”, adding: “I don’t think they got enough into the substance of their differences. I hope there’s another debate.”
Harris was expected to talk more about this week’s debate later on Friday at appearances in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, part of what her campaign called “an aggressive phase of campaigning” in swing states crucial to the outcome of November’s election.
At two raucous rallies in North Carolina on Thursday she challenged Trump to face her again. “We owe it to the voters. Because here’s the thing … in this election, what’s at stake could not be more important,” she told a crowd of an estimated 17,000 in Greensboro.
Trump was continuing his campaign on Friday with a press conference in Los Angeles. Three days after the Philadelphia debate, the Republican nominee is still facing backlash for his false claims about immigrants eating pet animals, with some allies blaming the influence of the conspiracy theorist and rightwing extremist Laura Loomer.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump claimed during the debate. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Trump drew criticism for inviting Loomer, who has called the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US “an inside job”, to accompany him to Wednesday’s 9/11 commemoration. She was also reported to have been part of his debate preparation team.
The Semafor website quoted an unnamed source close to Trump’s campaign as saying they were “100%” concerned about Loomer’s sway over him.
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