Trump, Harris back on friendly ground after tough interrogations

By AFP - Oct 17,2024 - Last updated at Oct 17,2024

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park on October 16, 2024 in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania (AFP photo)

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris headed to the swing state of Wisconsin on Thursday while Donald Trump took to the airwaves, a day after the US presidential election rivals faced unusually hostile television audiences in a bid to break through in a tied race.

The candidates are racing toward the Election Day finish line with the Democratic vice president narrowly leading her Republican rival nationally and in several crucial swing states, although most polls are within the margin of error.

Both have been desperate to peel off support from their opponent in the final weeks of the race, and Harris planned to woo blue-collar workers in the manufacturing hub of La Crosse and in Green Bay, one of Wisconsin's largest cities.

Trump sat for an interview with a supportive podcast, dominated by immigration, the economy and his grievances against the US media -- although he made news by blaming Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia's invasion of his country.

"Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I've ever seen. Every time he comes in, we give him $100 billion. Who else got that kind of money in history? There's never been (anyone)," Trump told the two-million-subscriber PBD Podcast.

"And that doesn't mean I don't want to help him, because I feel very badly for those people. He should never have let that war start."

Although Kyiv is a US ally and Moscow is considered an adversary, Trump touted his good relationship with Russia's Vladimir Putin during a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky in September, sparking outrage.

'Day of love'

The appearance came after Trump had fielded much less friendly questions during a Univision network town hall on Wednesday from undecided Hispanic voters, a key bloc Trump is desperate to court ahead of November 5.

The former president did not mention his plan -- touted at every rally -- to enact the biggest deportations in US history but instead said he wanted to encourage legal immigration.

A California farm laborer asked who would do the work if most of the undocumented workforce was deported, and Trump struggled to answer, instead blasting foreign "terrorists" and "murderers" taking the jobs of Black and Hispanic Americans.

Trump was also quizzed about the insurrection at the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters seeking to halt the certification of his 2020 election defeat to Biden.

The violence was the culmination of an alleged criminal conspiracy to steal the 2020 election that Trump has been indicted for, but he denied any responsibility, calling January 6, 2021, "a day of love."

He was also pressed for pushing a racist conspiracy theory that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, have been eating local people's pets, and responded that was "just saying what was reported."

An estimated 36 million Latinos are expected to be eligible to vote in this year's election, and their support is considered particularly important in the closely watched battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

A Times/Siena College poll of Hispanic voters published on Saturday found 56 percent said they would vote for Harris, while 37 percent said they would vote for Trump.

'Unstable'

Harris's momentum in the polls has plateaued in recent weeks, however, and both candidates have been on a blitz of new and traditional media as they try to win over the small number of undecided voters.

The vice president sat down with right-wing Fox News on Wednesday in Pennsylvania, where she was hit with her toughest questioning so far -- taking several hits on her policy record and dodging some questions.

The vice president was pressed hard on when she noticed that Biden was mentally "diminished," how many immigrants had entered the country illegally and whether she would apologize to the parents of a child murdered by undocumented migrants.

But Harris was able to pivot repeatedly to attacking "unstable" Trump, giving Fox News viewers a rare insight into his behavior and rhetoric -- something that could sway disaffected Republicans and swing voters.

Her best moment came when she berated host Bret Baier for whitewashing Trump's recent threat to set the military on his political opponents, after Fox played a clip of the Republican cleaning up his remarks instead of the threat itself.

Republicans claimed the interview was a disaster while Democrats called it a triumph.

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