Trump holds news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Harris and Walz campaign in Michigan

AP:

With both major party tickets now decided, the campaign is set to play out as a 90-day sprint, and the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt are prime fronts. Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are showing their support for organised labour by appearing at a United Auto Workers event in Detroit.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump held a news conference Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, making his first public appearance since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee and selected Walz as her running mate.

Trump said he has not “recalibrated” his campaign despite facing a new opponent, a dynamic some Republican strategists have quietly complained about.

Trump continued to criticise Biden, against whom he has been running since before the 2020 election, during his press conference at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, all while hurling personal insults at Harris, the new Democratic nominee.

When asked what assets Harris possessed, Trump said, “She’s a woman. She represents certain groups of people.”

Four times he questioned the intelligence of Harris, a former California attorney general and former US senator.

He said the strategy for the campaign would not change because it’s not about Harris, it’s about the policies of the Biden-Harris administration that will decide the election.

During his news conference, the former president suggested that abortion “has become much less of an issue” since the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion services and returned control of the matter to state governments.

Trump argued that Democrats, Republicans and “everybody” is pleased with the results of the 2022 ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Trump’s actions within the GOP, however, suggest he knows that Democrats have already capitalised on Republican opposition to abortion rights and could do so again this fall. Trump single-handedly ensured that the Republican Party platform adopted at the 2024 convention in Milwaukee does not call for a national abortion ban, and he has said repeatedly that hardliners in the party could cost the GOP in November.

The court’s decision, issued months ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, is widely cited as a reason why Democrats fared much better than expected in House and Senate contests. And Democrats have hammered Trump on paid advertisements blaming him and the justices he appointed for ending Roe.

The assassination attempt hasn’t changed his mind on gun control. He said almost being assassinated by a gunman has not changed his position opposing any new federal regulations or restrictions on weapons.

“People need the guns for protection,” he said, pointing to US cities that have attempted local gun restrictions and still see violent crime. He accused Harris of wanting to “take away everyone’s guns”.

Harris’ proposals call for universal background checks and a ban on certain near-military grade weapons like those that were banned from 1994 until a decade later, when then-President George W. Bush and Republicans on Capitol Hill allowed the ban to expire.