With less than a week to go before a highly anticipated debate, Kamala Harris heads to Pennsylvania on Thursday, perhaps the most crucial state in the presidential election, while Donald Trump addresses business circles in New York.
The former Republican president visited the northeastern state, which has been hit by deindustrialization, on Wednesday, where he won by a hair’s breadth in 2016 and then lost by a tiny margin in 2020.
His lawyers, for their part, returned to court in Washington in the federal proceedings targeting the billionaire for illegal attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
The November 5 election is once again expected to be very close, and the United States is concerned about attempted Russian interference, against which it announced a battery of measures on Wednesday.
Without responding directly to these accusations, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured Thursday, not without sarcasm, that he “supports” Kamala Harris. “She has such an expressive and contagious laugh that it shows that she is doing well,” he added with a smile.
Kamala Harris’ laughter is often ridiculed by American conservatives, led by Donald Trump.
The White House responded by ordering Vladimir Putin to “stop interfering” in this presidential election.
The vice president and Democratic candidate is traveling to Pittsburgh, America’s historic steel capital, on Thursday.
Pennsylvania is expected to be his base camp to prepare for the September 10 confrontation with Donald Trump, which will take place in Philadelphia and will be broadcast by ABC.
Microphones cut
The latter revealed the rules of this 90-minute duel, which gave rise to tough negotiations between the two camps.
They will be the same as during the now famous June debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, completely botched by the Democratic president, to the point of leading to his withdrawal from the race for the White House on July 21.
On Tuesday, the duettists will be standing behind their desks, without notes and without an audience, and their speaking time will be strictly controlled.
Each candidate’s microphone will only be turned on when it is their turn to speak — Harris’ campaign had pushed for the microphones to remain on throughout, likely calculating that this would be detrimental to Donald Trump, who is notoriously prone to outbursts.
The first exchange is scheduled for 9 p.m. local time.
On Wednesday, during a Fox News panel, Donald Trump accused ABC of being biased and claimed without evidence that Kamala Harris would receive questions in advance.
“They’re really bad, and I think a lot of people will be watching to see how bad they are, how unfair they are,” the 78-year-old Republican lamented.
In Pennsylvania, the campaign is taking place against a backdrop of heated debates surrounding the takeover of American steelmaker US Steel.
The Pittsburgh-based company is threatening to launch a social plan if its acquisition by Japanese firm Nippon Steel fails, which the US executive is opposed to.
On Monday, the 59-year-old Democratic candidate said she wanted to keep the group under American control.
Former President Donald Trump has also vowed to oppose the move.
Pennsylvania’s blue-collar workers have jumped ship in droves to support Donald Trump. But Harris is counting on Biden’s major reindustrialization projects and union support to win them back.
As well as the popularity of his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who will hold a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
The vice president, better positioned in national voting intentions than Joe Biden, but still neck and neck with Donald Trump in the most contested states, continues to repeat that nothing is decided.
“This race will be tight until the last minute. Let’s not pay too much attention to the polls, because we are not the favorites,” she warned again on Wednesday.