Former President Trump appeared at a town hall event hosted by Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday and criticized Vice President Harris in an intimate interview in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Trump participated in a town hall taped earlier that evening after suggesting a debate with Harris that same day on Fox News. Harris’ campaign has decided not to add any additional debates beyond the Sept. 10 debate on ABC News. Wednesday night’s program was limited to a conversation between Trump and Hannity, with audience questions scheduled to air Thursday night.
Here are five takeaways from Trump and Hannity’s conversation:
Focus on fracking
Trump has repeatedly pressed Harris on the fracking issue, which is likely to be a focus of the upcoming campaign in Pennsylvania.
The former president and Hannity highlighted Harris’s pledge in the 2019 primary to ban fracking if elected. Harris has since said she would not do so if she wins in November.
“Pennsylvania can’t afford to have that answer be true,” Trump said of Harris’ 2019 comments.
“You have no choice. You have to vote for me,” he said. “You have to fracking.”
Fracking has created an economic boom in parts of Pennsylvania, and a ban could cost residents jobs and complicate energy production.
Harris has defended some of the positions she took during the 2019 campaign. The vice president and her campaign have tried to distance herself from past comments on fracking, immigration and Medicare for All.
Trump slams ABC ahead of debate
Wednesday’s event comes a week before President Trump faces Harris on stage at the debate in Philadelphia.
The former president criticized Harris’s information, but mostly used the opportunity to mock ABC News, which is hosting the event next Tuesday.
President Trump said, “ABC is the worst network when it comes to fairness.”
The former president has repeatedly expressed doubts about ABC’s impartiality, setting expectations for how he will be treated ahead of the Sept. 10 debate with Harris, which is currently the only debate on the schedule between the two candidates.
“They’re the most dishonest network. The meanest, the meanest, but that’s what I was offered. I was offered ABC,” Trump added. “I think a lot of people are going to watch to see how bad they are and how unfair they are. I’m going to do that because they won’t do another network.”
Trump agreed to two debates with President Biden earlier this year, one on CNN in June and one on ABC News in September. Trump backed out of the ABC debate when Harris was promoted to the top of the ticket to replace Biden, but the two sides eventually agreed to attend the September 10 event.
Trump returns to key Pennsylvania
Wednesday marked President Trump’s second visit to Pennsylvania in the past week, following a rally in Jonestown last Friday.
A loss in Pennsylvania could make it much harder for either candidate to secure the 270 electoral votes needed, making the state potentially crucial to the outcome of the November election.
Both the Trump campaign and Harris campaign have invested significant time and resources in Pennsylvania. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), has been to the state multiple times.
Harris was in Pittsburgh with Biden on Monday to celebrate Labor Day, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), is scheduled to campaign in the state for two days this week.
Polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris in Pennsylvania, with Harris leading by less than 1% in the state, according to the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average.
Also attending Wednesday’s town hall was David McCormick, the Republican candidate for Senate who will run against Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) in November.
Trump immerses himself in friendly crowd
The audience at Wednesday’s town hall meeting could easily have been mistaken for a Trump rally attendee.
The former president entered the stadium to thunderous applause and chants of “USA” and “Trump.”
“I liked the crowd,” Trump said with a smile as he took his seat before the event began.
The audience cheered virtually every word Trump said, then roared in protest when Harris or the Biden administration’s policies were mentioned.
“This is a really tough interview,” Hannity jokes at one point.
The raucous atmosphere reflects the crowd Trump was hoping for when he first proposed having a full studio audience for his debate with Harris. The former president was energized by the crowd’s energy, and his Democratic opponents tried to take that away from him by insisting on holding the general election debate without an audience.
Trump’s Obsession with ‘Weirdness’
Democrats have been keen to nitpick and rip Trump apart, and one line of attack seems to have been more effective than the other: Trump and the Republicans are criticized for being “strange.”
The attack was started by Wallace, but quickly spread among Democrats, who used it particularly against Vance.
President Trump took the time to push back against that explanation at several events, including a town hall meeting with Hannity on Wednesday.
“JD is not weird. He’s a rock solid. I happen to be a very solid rock. We’re not weird. We might be different, but we’re not weird,” Trump said.
“But he’s a weird guy,” he said of Walls. “There’s something wrong with him when he gets on stage. And he calls me weird, and the fake news media picks up on that. That’s the word of the day.”
