'I'm not that close to 80': Trump on defense on age ahead of visit to Steelers game

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump pushed back against attacks on his age during a campaign event in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Sunday that came between a visit handing out fries at a McDonald's and plans to attend a Pittsburgh Steelers game.

"I'm not 80, and I'm not that close to 80," the 78-year-old former president said at a town hall event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

"I've done cognitive tests. I've done them twice, and I aced both of them, and the doctor in one case said, 'I've never seen anybody ace them,'" Trump added.

Trump appeared to be referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment that his White House physician, Ronny Jackson, now a Texas Republican congressman, said the then-president answered perfectly in January of 2018. Trump has previously claimed to have aced that test , which takes about 10 minutes and poses 30 questions, including on naming the animal in an image and repeating back a series of words.

During Sunday's town hall, Trump also swung hard at Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' evolving position on fracking , an energy-extraction technique used for natural gas in Pennsylvania and more than two dozen other states. Harris called for banning the practice when she first ran for president in 2019, although she now says she would allow it .

Earlier in the day, the former president visited a McDonald's in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, where he donned an apron, worked the fry station, and handed out food to pre-screened people at the drive-thru.

For her part, Harris on Sunday marked her 60th birthday with a visit to two churches in Georgia as she encouraged early voting in another important swing state.

'She may have a cognitive problem'

Democrats in recent days have gone on offense over Trump's age and behavior, including a town hall in Pennsylvania last week where the Republican presidential nominee moved around to music for nearly 40 minutes after ending his event's Q&A portion because of two medical emergencies in the crowd.

At a fundraiser in Boston, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and two-term Minnesota governor, referenced Trump's comments from a Saturday rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where the former president shared a story about a former professional golfer's private anatomy , praising the late-Arnold Palmer as "all man."

"These are folks that are out there, and I run into them — hell, they're in my family -- and I run into them, they — 'I don't really like Trump.' You mean you don't like him talking about Arnold Palmer in the showers, that stuff you don't like?" Walz said on Sunday. "And they get pretty embarrassed."

Trump at his Sunday town hall pushed back on the criticism over his age by highlighting Wall Street Journal opinion writer James Taranto, who wrote in a recent article that there was no sign of "slippage" in Trump when the Republican nominee met with the paper's editorial board on Thursday. While Trump's "discursive style of talking can confuse listeners," that was also true nine years ago, according to Taranto.

At his town hall, Trump tried to turn the tables back on Harris. "She may have a cognitive problem, but, but there's no cognitive problem," he said.

'Frack, baby, frack'

Asked by a small businessman at the Lancaster town hall about gas prices, Trump promised that his future administration would cut electric and energy bills in half "within one year" by pushing policies that expanded oil and gas production.

"What are we going to do? Drill, baby drill. Frack, baby frack," Trump said.

Trump's campaign then played for the town hall attendees a series of video clips of Harris discussing energy policy in her 2020 presidential campaign, including one in which she said she was "committed to passing a Green New Deal and finally putting an end to fracking once and for all."

"She doesn't want fracking. She's never wanted fracking," Trump said.

Trump also claimed Harris, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom, "destroyed" California, but repeatedly mispronounced Newsom's last name to sound like New-"scum."

"We're not going to let her destroy America," he said.

Trump calls for shielding law enforcement from 'the bad things'

A Pennsylvania county sheriff who said he had endorsed Trump asked the former president how his plan for law and order would support local sheriffs. Trump replied that law enforcement officers needed to be shielded from any legal repercussions.

"We have to protect our law enforcement. We have to indemnify them against the bad things," Trump said.

Trump said that a law enforcement officer who does their job often gets attacked by critics who want to take their job or pension, or get the person fired.

"We have people that have to be given back authority and their respect, because our cities are blowing up," he said.

Trump heads to Steelers game as Harris touts endorsements

Trump said he's planning to attend the Steelers-New York Jets game on Sunday night at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh.

In a press release ahead of the game, the Harris campaign touted endorsements from former Steelers players Jerome “The Bus” Bettis and Joe Greene, as well as from the family of former player Franco Harris, who died in 2022.

"It’s time for us to elect a leader who’s gonna fight for us. Someone who’s gonna roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Not just complain about it at a half-empty venue," Bettis said in a video . "There’s only one person in this race who fits that bill: Vice President Kamala Harris."

The Steelers are owned by Arthur Rooney II. His father, the late Dan Rooney, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland during the Obama administration. The Jets are co-owned by Robert Wood Johnson IV, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Trump administration.

(This story has been updated with more information.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'I'm not that close to 80': Trump on defense on age ahead of visit to Steelers game