Harris, Trump campaign in US battlegrounds as migrant row intensifies
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a press conference at his golf club in Los Angeles on Sept 13.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, United States - US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris again took their campaigns to battleground states on Sept 13, as a racially charged row over Haitian immigrants intensified with the Republican leader promising “large deportations.”
Trump, 78, was due to hold a rally later on Sept 13 in Nevada, where his campaign says he will focus on voters’ economic worries, including inflation.
Ms Harris, coming off a strong performance in a Sept 10 televised debate
Opinion polls show a near dead heat
Stung by widespread agreement, including among some prominent Republicans, that Democrat Ms Harris won the Sept 10 debate, Trump is doubling down on harsh rhetoric about illegal immigration - the issue at the core of his campaign.
In remarks from his luxury golf course near Los Angeles, Trump accused “communist” Ms Harris of “allowing illegal aliens to stampede across our border.”
And he homed in on the small Ohio city of Springfield, saying Haitian immigrants there
“We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” he said.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country.”
Springfield is at the centre of swirling conspiracy theory spread by Republicans and Trump’s campaign that claims Haitians are eating local residents’ pets.
On Sept 13, Springfield authorities evacuated schools for a second day amid unspecified threats linked to the growing tension.
The head of the local Haitian community centre, Mr Viles Dorsainvil, told AFP that the FBI was investigating threatening phone calls to the organisation.
Trump magnified the false story about the pets in extended comments on Sept 12, where he claimed park geese were likewise being killed by Haitians - and told a rally that “young American girls being raped and sodomised and murdered by savage criminal aliens.”
President Joe Biden, who dropped out of his own reelection campaign to endorse Ms Harris instead, intervened on Sept 13 to say that Trump “has to stop” inflaming tensions, and that “there’s no place in America for this.”
Far-right entourage
There was also mounting controversy over the presence of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer
She travelled with him to the debate on Sept 10 and also accompanied him to Ground Zero on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks - despite having claimed that the deadliest terrorist attack in US history was an “inside job.”
“I don’t control Laura, Laura says what she wants,” Trump told reporters in Los Angeles.
“Laura has been a supporter of mine,” he said, adding that he’d never heard she had spread 9/11 conspiracies.
Ms Loomer has drawn fire from even hard-right Republicans over her comment that Ms Harris, whose mother was Indian, would make the White House “smell like curry.”
As Nov 5 election day rapidly approaches, Trump has been forced to pivot his campaign to fight Ms Harris, rather than Mr Biden, who at 81 was seen by his own Democratic Party as unlikely to win.
Trump’s struggles have been increasingly visible, including his televised remarks at the golf course on Sept 13.
He spoke defensively about the polls, which he claimed showed him far ahead, and insisted again that he had dominated Ms Harris at the debate. He has also refused her challenge to hold another debate.
On Sept 12, Trump was in the toss-up state of Arizona, while Ms Harris held two rallies in North Carolina, likewise a battleground.
‘Turn the page’
Ms Harris, 59, has largely avoided responding directly to Trump’s personal attacks, choosing to pitch herself as a leader from a new generation who will end the constant drama and division that characterised Trump’s presidency and post-presidential career.
When Trump brought up the false story about pets being eaten by migrants in their debate, she responded by shaking her head disbelievingly.
On Sept 12, Ms Harris told rally-goers in North Carolina, “It’s time to turn the page.”
Despite raising huge amounts of donations and drawing neck-and-neck with Trump in the polls, Ms Harris again insisted on Sept 12 that she still has a lot of work to do.
“We know ours will be a very tight race until the very end. We are the underdog. Let’s be clear about that,” she said. AFP
Democratic presidential nominee, US Vice-President Kamala Harris greeting guests at a Pennsylvania coffee shop and bookstore, on Sept 13.
PHOTO: AFP
