5 takeaways from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago news conference

Former President Trump tried to seize back the headlines and curb Vice President Harris’s election momentum Thursday with a long and characteristically rambling news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump appears irked by Harris’s rise in the polls following President Biden’s decision to step aside from the 2024 race. Trump’s lead over Biden has been largely eliminated by Harris, who has also benefited from a fired-up Democratic base and a massive fundraising infusion.  

The news conference was clearly an attempt by the former president to refocus the spotlight on himself after a period during which Harris has enjoyed mostly positive attention and has seized center stage.

Here are the main takeaways.

Trump proposes 3 debates

The main news out of the press conference was the former president’s suggestion that he and Harris should participate in three televised debates.

Trump proposed a Sept. 4 clash on Fox News, a Sept. 10 debate on NBC and a Sept. 25 faceoff on ABC. 

Previously, the picture regarding debates was cloudy. Trump had implied he was no longer willing to participate in a scheduled ABC clash, while the Harris campaign had indicated she was unlikely to accede to his counterproposal for a debate on Fox.

Now, it seems as if the ABC debate will go ahead. Early reports indicate NBC is in talks with both campaigns, while Harris still has not said yes to a Fox debate. 

Any clash between the two candidates would be an enormous TV event. Trump is unlikely to get such an emphatic debate win as he enjoyed June 27, when Biden misfired catastrophically. But the former president will be eager to prove that he can go one-on-one with Harris and wring advantage from the event.

Trump goads Harris for lack of news conferences

One line of attack from the Trump camp in the past few days has been Harris’s failure to participate in a news conference or unscripted interview since becoming the de facto Democratic nominee. 

That complaint has been made at a time when Harris has drawn large and evident enthusiasm to her rallies — especially since her choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate.

Trump tried to goad Harris into such an appearance Thursday. At one point, he said “she can’t do a news conference,” alleging she was “not smart enough” to do so. 

He also indicated Harris was refusing to even do interviews because, he claimed, “she’s barely competent.”

The effectiveness of this hectoring seems open to debate. 

Harris is not about to do anything simply because Trump insists she should. But the former president’s focus on her lack of unscripted appearances will resonate in the media and may contribute to the pressure upon her. 

Team Trump’s hope is a Harris misstep could bring her campaign abruptly back to earth.

Trump seeks to paint Harris and Walz as radicals

The former president’s campaign is eager to paint Harris and her running mate as outside the American mainstream.

Trump continued that effort Thursday.

He contended Harris “destroyed San Francisco” during her time as the city’s district attorney. He also lambasted the vice president for her record on the border, citing the once-widespread description of her as Biden’s “border czar.”

But Trump was also emphatic in going after Walz, who he said has been “heavy into the transgender world” — and whom he generally cast as a far-left figure.

The two together are part of the “radical left,” Trump charged.

There’s no question this portrayal of Harris and Walz will continue to be a main theme of Republican attacks. Harris and Walz, of course, are working hard to counter those jabs.

Democrats hope Harris’s record as a prosecutor and Walz’s Midwestern “regular guy” persona will win over voters.

An unlikely defense of Biden

The news conference encompassed some incongruous moments when Trump offered a defense, of a kind, of Biden.

Trump contended the “presidency was taken away from Joe Biden” and at one point suggested the mechanism by which Harris had replaced the president as the Democratic standard-bearer may have been “unconstitutional.” 

Trump also made reference to the fact Biden received 14 million votes during the Democratic primary process, which Harris, obviously, did not contest at all. 

Even Trump recognized how strange it was for him to use such language. “I’m not a fan of his, as you’ve probably noticed,” he acknowledged at one point, referring to Biden.

There is no mistaking why Trump is using the tactic. He is seeking to stoke voter dissatisfaction about the manner by which Biden was supplanted by Harris.

There’s not much sign yet that the gambit is working, given how quickly Democrats have coalesced around Harris.

A bizarre aside about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Any Trump event is prone to being diverted into unusual and sometimes damaging tangents. 

On Thursday, that came when Trump, having been asked about the Jan. 6 riot, segued into a bizarre and querulous series of comments about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 “I Have A Dream” speech.

Specifically, Trump contended the crowd that gathered for his speech near the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, which preceded the riot at the Capitol, drew a bigger crowd than King’s landmark civil rights address. 

Aside from the fact the claim is untrue, it also seems ill-advised for Trump to get into such a peculiar quarrel. 

The issue of race is already sensitive in this year’s campaign — and not only because Trump’s opponent is a woman of Black and South Asian descent.

During a recent appearance at a National Association of Black Journalists conference, Trump claimed Harris only adopted a Black identity when it was politically advantageous to her. Those remarks caused a furor. 

Now Trump has opened up another seam of race-related controversy, for no apparent good reason.