Former President Trump on Wednesday attended what was billed as a town hall event moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity, where he lambasted Vice President Harris during a friendly interview in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania.
Trump took part in the town hall, which was taped earlier in the evening, after initially proposing a debate with Harris hosted by Fox News on the same date. Harris’s campaign declined to add additional debates beyond a Sept. 10 one hosted by ABC News. Wednesday night’s program was only a conversation between Trump and Hannity, with audience questions scheduled to air on Thursday night.
Here are five takeaways from Trump’s conversation with Hannity:
A focus on fracking
Trump repeatedly hammered Harris on the issue of fracking, something that is likely to be a focal point of his campaign in Pennsylvania moving forward.
The former president and Hannity highlighted Harris’s comments during her 2019 presidential primary campaign in which she pledged to ban fracking if elected. Harris has since said she would not do so if she wins the presidency in November.
“Pennsylvania can’t take a chance that that answer is true,” Trump said of Harris’s 2019 comments.
“You have no choice, you’ve got to vote for me,” he added. “You have to have fracking.”
Fracking has led to an economic boom in parts of Pennsylvania, and a ban could cost residents jobs and complicate energy production.
Harris has been on defense over some of the positions she took during her 2019 campaign. The vice president and her campaign have tried to distance her from past comments about fracking, immigration and Medicare for All.
Trump blasts ABC ahead of debate
Wednesday’s event came less than a week before Trump is set to square off with Harris on the debate stage in Philadelphia.
The former president jabbed at Harris’s intelligence, but he mostly took the opportunity to ridicule ABC News, which is hosting the event next Tuesday.
“ABC is the worst network in terms of fairness,” Trump said.
The former president has repeatedly cast doubt on ABC’s fairness, setting expectations for how he may be treated ahead of his Sept. 10 debate against Harris. It is currently the only debate on the calendar between the two candidates.
“They are the most dishonest network. The meanest, the nastiest, but that is what I was presented with. I was presented with ABC,” Trump added. “I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see how nasty they are, how unfair they are. I agreed to do it because they wouldn’t do any other network.”
Trump had agreed earlier this year to two debates with President Biden: one in June on CNN and another in September hosted by ABC News. When Harris replaced Biden atop the ticket, Trump backed out of the ABC debate, only for the two sides to eventually agree to attend the Sept. 10 event.
Trump returns to pivotal Pennsylvania
Wednesday marked Trump’s second time in Pennsylvania in the past week, following his rally in Johnstown last Friday.
The commonwealth is poised to play a potentially decisive role in the outcome of November’s election, as either candidate’s path to 270 electoral votes becomes much more difficult without winning Pennsylvania.
Both the Trump campaign and Harris campaign have poured significant time and resources into Pennsylvania. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has made numerous stops in the commonwealth.
Harris was in Pittsburgh on Monday alongside Biden to mark Labor Day, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), will spend two days this week campaigning in the state.
Polling has shown an extremely tight race between Trump and Harris in Pennsylvania. A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of polls shows Harris leading by less than 1 percentage point in the state.
Also in attendance for Wednesday’s town hall was David McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate running against Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in November.
Trump basks in a friendly crowd
The audience for Wednesday’s town hall could have easily been mistaken for that of a Trump rally.
The former president entered the arena to thunderous applause and chants of “USA” and “Trump.”
“Nice crowd,” Trump remarked with a smile as he sat down at the start of the event.
The audience cheered practically all of Trump’s comments and shouted out in disapproval at the mention of Harris or the Biden administration’s policies.
“This is a very tough interview,” Hannity quipped at one point.
The raucous environment reflects the kind of crowd Trump may have hoped for when he first proposed holding a debate with Harris with a full studio audience. The former president thrives off of the energy of the crowd, something his Democratic opponents sought to deprive him of in insisting the general election debates be held without an audience.
Trump’s fixation on ‘weird’
Democrats have basked in needling Trump and getting under his skin, and one line of attack seems to have done that more than others: the critique that Trump and Republicans are “weird.”
The attack originated with Walz, but it quickly caught on among Democrats, who especially used it against Vance.
Trump has taken time to push back on the descriptor during multiple events, including his town hall with Hannity on Wednesday.
“JD is not weird. He’s a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock. We’re not weird. We’re other things, perhaps, but we’re not weird,” Trump said.
“But he is a weird guy,” he said of Walz. “He walks on the stage and there is something wrong with that guy. And he called me weird, and then the fake news media picks it up, that’s the word of the day.”
