With election day just three months away, Trump’s light schedule-a rally every four or five days-has been contrasted with the hectic program of an opponent almost 20 years his junior, and his with own vigorous campaigning in 2016. The 78-year-old tycoon has held just five rallies since the Republican National Convention concluded in mid-July-one fewer than Harris is staging this week alone-and has no events at all announced yet for next week.
Eight years ago, Trump was staging multiple events a day by August, but the oldest major party presidential nominee in US history is venturing out of Florida for the first time this week for a rally in Montana, a state he should win easily. The ex-president bristled at questions over his schedule in a hastily-convened press conference at his home in south Florida Thursday.
He said he had been absent from battleground states because he was “leading by a lot and because I’m letting their convention go through,” a reference to the Democratic National Convention, which will end on August 22.
The Harris campaign called the Republican former president “low energy”-a favorite Trump insult-while his former communications chief Alyssa Farah Griffin bemoaned Republicans not picking a “younger, more vibrant candidate.”