President Donald Trump accused Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) of repeatedly lying during the 2020 vice presidential debate on Wednesday night.
Trump appeared on Fox Business with host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning and gave his reaction to the debate the night before. Trump started with an attack on Biden’s fitness for office before transitioning to Harris’s debate performance.
“Biden won’t be president for two months, okay? He won’t be president for two months,” Trump said.
“He’s not mentally capable. He’s not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that. Everybody that knows him. He can’t be president,” he continued. “And this monster who was on stage with Mike Pence – who destroyed her last night, by the way – but, this monster, she says, no, no there won’t be fracking, there won’t be this. Everything she said is a lie.”
Trump refers to Kamala Harris as "this monster" pic.twitter.com/hcnUpV8PBf
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 8, 2020
Harris told a number of falsehoods during the debate on Wednesday, such as claiming that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax.” Trump had claimed that the Democrats had politicized the pandemic as “their new hoax.”
Harris had also claimed that “the American people know that Joe Biden will not ban fracking.” Biden and Harris have both expressed support for ending fracking. Biden’s own climate plan calls for cracking down on oil and gas producers with “aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.” Biden’s plan also says he will ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters” and factor in emissions to royalties owed the federal government, increasing the cost of producing.
Trump is preparing for the second presidential debate set to take place on Oct. 15. The debate plans were thrown into turmoil on Thursday morning when the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that the second debate would be held virtually in a town hall format with each candidate in separate locations. Trump responded to the announcement on Fox News, saying he would not debate under such rules.
“I’m not going to do a virtual debate,” Trump said. “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate is ridiculous.”
Trump said that the commission did not reach out to his campaign before making the decision to move the debate to a virtual setting.
“They didn’t even tell us about the debate, Maria,” Trump said. “We learned it the same way you learned it. They called up two minutes ago and it was announced. They’re trying to protect Biden. Everybody is.”
Trump tested positive for the coronavirus last week and spent the weekend in Walter Reed Medical Center before returning to the White House to quarantine on Monday evening. Biden said on Wednesday that if Trump still had COVID-19 by the time of the debate, the debate should be canceled.
“Well, I think if he still has COVID, we shouldn’t have a debate,” Biden said. “I think we’re gonna have to follow very strict guidelines. Too many people have been infected and it’s a very serious problem.”
“And so I’ll be guided by the guidelines of the Cleveland Clinic, and what the docs say is the right thing to do — if and when he shows up for debate,” he added.