ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This week's debate was the first time that the two candidates met face to face, and it's unclear if they'll faceoff again before election day. Since the debate, Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump have been crossing the country, making stops in swing states, and our reporters have been following them. NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid is covering the Harris campaign, and NPR politics reporter Ben Giles has been following Trump. Good to have you both here.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
BEN GILES, BYLINE: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Ben, let's start with you. You were in Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California with the former president - not a swing state. What's he doing there?
GILES: So Trump's in California to participate in some fundraisers, including one hosted by the Republican Party of Los Angeles. There's lots of Republicans and people in general in California, after all. He also hosted what was billed as a press conference. He spoke for about 39 minutes before taking questions for another 25 or so. In those initial remarks, Trump frequently described California as a failure of a state, on the decline and the brink of collapse, and he blamed Harris, who served as district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general of California before her election to the Senate.
He also didn't miss an opportunity to boast about his property in a picturesque setting along the Pacific Ocean, even while trashing California at large.
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DONALD TRUMP: I love this place. Look at this. I own this - no partners, no mortgage, no nothing. I own it. And I'm talking so badly about the state. It hurts me to do it. I would never do this, except for the fact that I'm running for president and I want to save the country.
GILES: We should note the Trump Organization's Rancho Palos Verdes golf course - that was one of a number of properties that the New York attorney general said had falsely inflated values.
SHAPIRO: What has Trump been saying about a second presidential debate? Has he totally ruled it out?
GILES: So as he said in Tucson yesterday, Trump reiterated he has no intention of participating in a third presidential debate. He's described Tuesday night's debate as a resounding victory, though plenty of pundits and even some Republicans say otherwise.
SHAPIRO: Well, Asma, what has Vice President Harris been saying about the debate?
KHALID: Well, she certainly, and her team, don't think that Tuesday night's debate was a resounding victory for Trump. They think that it was a resounding victory for her. They point to the fact that the vice president looked calm and measured, and Trump was often rambling. You know, so Harris definitely wants to keep putting that contrast between herself and Donald Trump on full display. She wants more debates, and she made that point yesterday at a campaign stop in Charlotte, N.C.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate.
(CHEERING)
HARRIS: And I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate.
(CHEERING)
KHALID: You know, the challenge here for Harris is that the debate - you know, it did give her some momentum, but they've been trying to figure out, her team, how to convert that momentum, that debate coverage and some of those viral video moments, into votes. And it's not clear exactly how to do that because, you know, the race remains incredibly tight. So, you know, in addition to the mega rallies she's been doing, she's also planning to host this virtual event with Oprah next week, but her campaign says she'll be doing more local battleground state media interviews, including a discussion next week with The National Association of Black Journalists, and then we're also seeing her do some more retail stops, certainly more than we've seen from Donald Trump.
SHAPIRO: Interesting that she was in North Carolina yesterday, which has not gone Democrat for a while. But today she was in Pennsylvania. What did she get up to there?
KHALID: That's right. And, you know, there in Pennsylvania, she was campaigning in some of the more Republican parts of the state - think Luzerne County. It is a place that Trump convincingly won in 2020. The thinking from the Harris campaign is that she needs to chip away at some of the margins in those more red counties within the state. And that's how they see the path to victory for her in a place like Pennsylvania.
You know, one thing that I think I was also struck by is that prior to the debates, Republicans were really hammering Harris for her lack of policy specifics. She still doesn't have a whole lot of policy details, but she's trying to flip the script, using Trump's own words against him. Here she was in North Carolina yesterday, again, talking about Trump wanting to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
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HARRIS: You heard what he said in the debate. He has no plan to replace it.
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: He said, concepts of a plan. Oh, you all watched the debate (laughter).
KHALID: She's been trying to depict Trump as a candidate who is unserious, someone who does not have policy plans. Though, of course, this week, Trump actually did put out a rather bold plan, a bold new idea that overtime work should not face taxes.
SHAPIRO: Ben, what has Trump said about that no tax on overtime idea?
GILES: So Trump first brought up this idea of eliminating taxes on overtime pay yesterday in Arizona, where he said it would greatly benefit working-class people like nurses, police officers, truck drivers, construction workers. This morning, beyond trashing the state of California, Trump struggled to stay on message about things like the overtime tax, while mostly talking about crime and immigration.
SHAPIRO: You know, on that point, Trump has doubled down on these false claims about immigrants this week, even as they are repeatedly disproven, debunked, mocked. What do you expect from him going forward as he tries to draw differences with Harris?
GILES: You know, more of the same. This is an issue that Trump clearly thinks is resonating with voters because he's not backing down from exaggerating rumors about Venezuelan gangs running rampant in Aurora, Colo., as well as debunked claims of Haitian migrants abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. In fact, Trump said he'll use those towns as an example if elected.
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TRUMP: And we're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country, and we're going to start with Springfield and Aurora.
GILES: Trump also continues to falsely claim the Haitian migrant community in Springfield is in the country illegally, and he redirected when asked whether his rhetoric is presenting a real danger to Springfield residents. It's now been Day 2 of evacuations at Springfield schools and public buildings due to bomb threats that are explicitly tied to the influx of Haitian migrants in that community.
SHAPIRO: That is NPR's Ben Giles and Asma Khalid. Thank you both.
KHALID: Thank you.
GILES: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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