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Kamala Harris’s campaign has trolled Donald Trump by posting a video of chicken sounds playing over footage of him discussing the upcoming debate.
The video features a clip of Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo interviewing Trump before he committed to the September 10 ABC News debate. In the clip, which features repeated chicken noises the Harris campaign added, Bartiromo asked the former president, “Why not debate her?”
“Because they already know everything,” Trump responded. “They say, ‘Trump’s not doing the debate,’ it’s the same thing they say now. Right now, I say ‘why should I do a debate, I’m leading in the polls.’ And, everyone know her, everyone knows me.”
The video also featured a short clip of Trump’s campaign stop in Virginia on Monday, where he suggested he wanted to move the debate to another news organization.
The former president said ABC treated Republican Senator Tom Cotton unfairly when he appeared on the network over the weekend.
“When I looked at the hostility of that, I said, ‘Why am I doing it? Let’s do it with another network.’ I want to do it,” Trump said.
Trump at a campaign stop in Virginia. There, the former president criticized ABC News ahead of next month’s debate (Getty Images)
Harris’s team has repeatedly made jabs at Trump over the debate, saying he is scared to go up against the vice president.
Before Trump committed to the ABC News debate, Harris accused the former president earlier this month of “running scared” and advocating for a face-off hosted by Fox News instead.
Trump and Harris are currently in a spat over the issue of hot mics during the debate, which is just two weeks away.
The Harris campaign is pushing to keep the microphones on the entire time, a deviation from both the Biden campaign’s initial request and the format of the Biden-Trump debate earlier this summer.
However, Trump’s campaign says that the Harris campaign is trying to change the rules with the hope that the former president will back out of the debate.
“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Brian Fallon, senior adviser for communications for the Harris campaign, told Politico.
“Enough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser for Trump, also told Politico.
Meanwhile, Harris is ahead in the polls. The vice president has a 3.5-point lead over Trump, according to the latest average of national polls.
A new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University also shows Harris beating Trump by seven points when race and gender are considered by participants.
“When voters are made to think about the race or gender of the candidates, Harris’ lead grows substantially; when they’re not, support is essentially tie,” the university said in a statement.
