U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held his second news conference in a week on Thursday while his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, made her first joint appearance with President Joe Biden since he dropped out of the race.
Speaking at his New Jersey golf club, Trump was flanked by tables full of grocery items — cereal and coffee, packaged raw meat and milk — as he highlighted his claims about high food prices.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that food-at-home prices increased 1.1% year-on-year, marking the ninth straight month of increases of less than 2%. Although inflation rates have cooled, many Americans remain concerned about higher costs, according to media reports, with some economists noting that consumers have grown more price-sensitive.
During his lengthy speech, which included a number of misleading or false claims about issues ranging from the economy to immigration, Trump said he would get rid of all incentives and mandates that push the U.S. auto market toward electric vehicles.
He also reiterated his criticism of immigration under the Biden administration, in which he overstated figures about the number of people who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during Biden's term.
"Who wouldn’t want to have strong borders?" Trump said. "Who doesn't want to have lower taxes?"
Following the speech, Trump took questions from reporters.
On Israel, Trump repeated his claim that the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel would not have happened if he had been president. Trump said he hasn't spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the prime minister visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in July.
"I did encourage him to get this over with," Trump said, referring to the war between Israel and Hamas. "Get your victory and get it over with. It has to stop. The killing has to stop."
Last week, Trump took 37 questions in a 65-minute news conference at Mar-a-Lago, sparring with reporters while relentlessly disparaging Harris' intelligence and ability to lead the country over the next four years starting in January.
On Wednesday, Trump staged a rally in the mid-Atlantic state of North Carolina, ostensibly to talk about his economic plans. But then he questioned whether it even was the most important issue in the November election. "I'm not sure it is," he said at one point. "Crime is right there, I think the border is right there."
He also again veered into more personal attacks on Harris, mocking her laugh, saying she has "the laugh of a crazy person." On Thursday, when asked if he felt he should tone down the mudslinging, he said, "I think I'm entitled to personal attacks.”
“I have to do it my way,” Trump said, dismissing the suggestion that he alter his approach.
The former president on Wednesday suggested that Democrats were being "politically correct" in trying to elevate the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president and then become the party's standard-bearer in the 2024 election after Biden ended his reelection bid last month. Biden dropped out after a disastrous debate against Trump in late June and falling poll numbers.
Polls show Harris and Trump are now locked in a tight contest, but with Harris edging ahead in several of the political battleground states that are likely to determine the election outcome. Biden had been trailing Trump by 5 or 6 percentage points when he ended his campaign.
Harris has occasionally answered a handful of questions from reporters tracking her campaign but has yet to hold a full-scale news conference or sit for a one-on-one interview with a prominent news media figure.
The vice president says she is planning to do an interview before the end of August, apparently after next week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she will accept the party's presidential nomination. Harris had been running for reelection as vice president with Biden until he withdrew from the contest.
On Thursday in Maryland, Harris made her first public appearance with Biden since he quit the race and quickly endorsed her candidacy.
Biden and Harris are touting a new agreement with major pharmaceutical companies to cut the price of 10 commonly prescribed drugs for diabetes, cancer, arthritis and other ailments, a pact that the White House said would save older Americans $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs during the first year of the new price list.