Trump Says He Wants To ‘Surprise’ Kamala Harris With This Talking Point — ‘IF There Is a Debate’

Former President Donald Trump executed a two-fer when he told a crowd he wanted to surprise Vice President Kamala Harris with a version of a debunked claim — but qualified the remark by saying “IF there is a debate.”

Trump has continued to cast doubt on whether or not he will show up for the ABC debate in two weeks, amid wrangling and taunts between the campaigns over rules for the September 10 event.

On Monday, Trump spoke at an event with the National Guard Association Conference in Detroit, during which he renewed the possibility that the debate won’t happen.

In an aside about a talking point he planned to “surprise” VP Harris with, Trump said “ if there is a debate—”:

Kamala and Joe Biden. Crooked Joe sued to take those defenses down. You know that, right?

How about where they say, no, no, we have a strong border with. They don’t. So bad.

But then we find out that they flew almost a million people in over the border! They flew! That stops all of them.

I shouldn’t say this, because if there’s a debate, it would be nice to surprise her with that one. They flew– they’ll have– they have an answer to everything. Well. We decided.

Look, they flew almost a million people into our country. Our country can’t handle it. No country can handle it. Our country is going to go bankrupt. No country can handle it.

They’ve taken over the schools. They’ve taken over the hospitals. They’re taking over everything, and they’re getting jobs that were taken by other people that are not too happy.

But but think of it. They flew almost a million people over everything because they were saying about the, you know, how strong the border. But then they say, well, what about the million people you flew?

They have no answer for that one yet, but they’ll come up with one. They always have an answer.

The Harris campaign responded to the waffling with a chicken-sound-effect-laden video captioned “You scared (Trump)?”

An earlier version of Trump’s claim about migrants being flown in has been rated false by various fact-checkers, including The Associated Press :

CLAIM: The Biden administration has secretly flown more than 300,000 unvetted migrants into the country.

THE FACTS: An article published on Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies examined a major example of how Biden has exercised his parole authority for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

Each month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection discloses how many people from these four countries were allowed to enter the country. On Jan. 26, the agency reported 327,000 were vetted and authorized for travel. There were more than 67,000 Cubans, 126,000 Haitians, 53,000 Nicaraguans and 81,000 Venezuelans.

The Center for Immigration Studies article says CBP approved flights that brought 320,000 to the United States last year. The author, Todd Bensman, learned they came to 43 airports but the government refused to divulge which ones, citing an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act for law enforcement-sensitive information.

Bensman said Wednesday that he doesn’t consider the program secretive, but finds it “enigmatic” and lacking in transparency.”

The migrants are not coming in from “parts unknown,” as Trump charged. CBP vets each one for eligibility and publishes the number of airport arrivals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Trump’s revised claim is more general than the one that got him dinged by fact-checkers, but still overstates the number of (vetted) migrants who entered under the program.

Watch above via Pool .