Harris goads Trump over 'hiding' from a debate as he burnishes border bona fides

Kamala Harris taunted Donald Trump at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Sunday, calling him out for not releasing recent medical records, declining a 60 Minutes interview and rejecting a second presidential debate.

“It makes you wonder — why does his staff want him to hide away?” Harris said. “One must question — are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America? Is that what’s going on?”

The new line of attack from Harris comes as she recently released her own personal medical records , sat for her own "60 Minutes" interview last week and accepted a CNN town hall , after Trump refused to participate in a second presidential debate with the vice president. In North Carolina, Harris accused Trump of “not being transparent” with voters, especially for not releasing more up-to-date medical information, which “every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done,” she said.

Trump, who at 78 is the oldest person to become a presidential nominee, has not released similar details on his own health.

Nearly three weeks out from Election Day, Harris and Trump both rallied supporters on Sunday across the country from each other. The vice president campaigned at East Carolina University — home to a state she’s hoping to turn blue for the first time since 2008. Trump held a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, a state where recent polling shows him gaining an edge.

Trump took the stage in the town north of Phoenix as supporters waved red, white and blue “Secure Our Border” signs as he announced plans to hire 10,000 new border patrol agents — a signal he's shoring up his flank on immigration.

“We need agents. We need them badly,” Trump said, pledging to lobby Congress to “immediately” approve a 10 percent raise for all border patrol agents, moments after members of the National Border Patrol Council took the stage to announce their endorsement of the former president.

The labor union, which represents more than 18,000 border patrol agents, backed Trump in 2016 and 2020 — but also threw its support behind the failed border bill Trump helped block.

Harris has repeatedly attacked Trump over his role in killing the bipartisan border bill earlier this year. During her first trip to the border as a presidential candidate late last month, Harris accused Trump of “playing political games” when it comes to border security.

Trump brushed aside the attack Sunday. “You don’t need a bill,” he told the crowd in Arizona, reiterating claims Republicans made when they blocked the border bill that President Joe Biden could “close the border” through an executive order. And a recent Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters still believe Trump would handle immigration and border security better than Harris, even as his rhetoric has grown increasingly racist and dark .

At his rally in Colorado on Friday, Trump announced “Operation Aurora,” a plan to deport migrants connected to gangs under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The former president has pedaled false rumors about gang members from Venezuela taking over the city — claims the Republican mayor there says are untrue . On Sunday he doubled down on those plans, and reiterated his promise to call to implement the death penalty for any migrant who kills an American citizen.

Early voting has already begun in several states, including Arizona. Trump urged his supporters there to take advantage of the practice and to return their mail-in ballots “immediately,” with just weeks left until Election Day.

Harris noted early voting starts Thursday in North Carolina during her own campaign stop. “We are nearing the homestretch,” Harris said. “I’m gonna tell you — it’s going to be a tight race until the very end, and we are running as the underdog.”

Indeed, Harris and Trump are locked in a tight race with public polling showing the pair in a margin-of-error battle in all seven battleground states. And in the final stretch of the campaign, Harris is ramping up her appearances. Next week, she and Gov. Tim Walz will campaign heavily in the “Blue Wall” states with multiple rallies and events in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Harris’ weekend swing through North Carolina is geared toward activating Black voters, a key part of how Barack Obama turned the state blue in 2008 — the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state. Her focus on Black voters, including a town hall event with radio host Charlamagne tha God in Detroit on Tuesday, is an implicit acknowledgement of the essential role Black voters will play in November.

The vice president is on track to win a majority of Black voters, but any slippage with that core constituency could be an existential challenge for her campaign. A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Saturday found that while eight in 10 Black voters said they support Harris, she’s still lagging behind President Joe Biden’s numbers with Black voters in 2020, when 90 percent backed him.

On Saturday, Harris met with Black elected officials and community leaders in eastern North Carolina, according to her campaign, and she packed supplies for victims of Hurricane Helene. Then, on Sunday, Harris spoke at a traditionally Black church in Greenville, where she told congregants at Koinonia Christian Center Church about how her faith, including singing in her children’s choir, informed her leadership.

In her speech to the congregation, Harris acknowledged the victims of Hurricane Helene and criticized “those who are channeling peoples’ tragedies and sorrows into grievances and hatred,” a reference to Trump’s own rhetoric following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which devastated much of the southeast.

“To play politics for other people’s heartbreak and it is unconscionable,” she said.