Surging Harris, Trump spar over debate dates

ATLANTA, United States — Kamala Harris's campaign branded Donald Trump "scared" Saturday after he proposed changing the debate schedule, as the Republican rallied in Georgia seeking to blunt the vice president's surging momentum in her bid to become America's first woman president.

In an overnight post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he was willing to debate Harris on the conservative-leaning Fox News network on September 4, while declining to participate in a previously scheduled debate on ABC.

Trump pitched the idea before going to a rally in Atlanta, where he gathered supporters in the same arena where Harris addressed an excited crowd of some 10,000 on Tuesday.

The former president unleashed his extreme scaremongering on illegal immigration, falsely claiming there is a flood of murderers from around the world -- he singled out "Congo" -- being let into the United States by Harris, who he said has "destroyed our country."

His rambling, 92-minute speech also included Trump's oft-repeated lie that the 2020 election was "rigged" by Democrats.

As for debating Harris, Trump said he had "agreed" to the plan with Fox. And he said it would occur in Pennsylvania -- a crucial battleground in the presidential electoral system -- before a live audience.

"We're doing one with Fox, if she shows up," Trump told his Atlanta rally. "I don't think she's going to show up. She can't talk."

The Harris campaign dismissed Trump's idea as "games."

"Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out," Harris's campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement. "He needs to... show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10."

Trump's proposal to confront Harris on Fox, a network that has long supported him, was his latest effort to recapture momentum in a campaign that had been focused on a rematch against Joe Biden, until the 81-year-old dramatically dropped his reelection bid last month.

Since then Harris, 59, has reenergized the Democratic base almost overnight.

She has raked in donations, reassembled the team behind Barack Obama's two historic election