Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been given the rather unfortunate nickname of ‘Donald Duck’ after he ruled out a televised debate with Kamala Harris, the current vice president whose campaign to nab the top job held by Joe Biden has come with countless Charli XCX brat memes.
Trump, who has also announced he is releasing a new book called Save America, has been firing off digs at President Biden after the 81-year-old stepped aside as his party’s favourite to fight the November election. But now the frontrunner has shifted to Harris, the convicted criminal isn’t very happy with her being his potential rival.
In a statement on Thursday, Steven Cheung, the communication director for the Trump campaign, said details of future general election debates “cannot be finalised until Democrats formally decide on their nominee”, citing the “continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party”.
He continued: “There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party [sic] – namely Barack Hussein Obama – that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone ‘better’.
“It would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats could still change their minds.”
Trump resorting to bringing up Obama again – especially including his middle name – has been criticised as a “standard dog whistle” online, as it revives a “birther” conspiracy theory and attack line previously promoted by Trump in which it was claimed the former Potus is not a natural-born American and as such, it was unconstitutional for him to serve in the country’s highest office.
Trump, amongst others, pushed the idea that Obama was born in Kenya when actually, he was born in Hawaii.
As for Obama’s support of Harris, Republicans have noted that the former president fell short of endorsing her in his statement on 21 July - when Biden stepped aside – and instead simply expressed his “extraordinary confidence” that his party’s leaders “will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges”.
Obama has since endorsed Harris, sharing a video to Twitter/X on Friday and writing that the vice president would make a "fantastic President of the United States".
As well as commenting on this point, social media users have noted that Trump had no issue debating Biden back in June, the televised event which amplified concerns over the incumbent president’s ability to challenge the Apprentice star for the White House in November.
At that point, Biden was still the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party – it would have been official and ‘formally decided’ (had he still have been in the running for the election) at the Democratic National Convention in mid-August.
Harris has since mocked Trump's decision, writing on Twitter/X: "What happened to 'any time, any place?'"
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2024-07-26T09:05:59Z dg43tfdfdgfd