Harris questions whether Trump is ‘fit’ to be president after canceled interviews

Vice President Kamala Harris questioned whether former President Donald Trump is “fit” to serve as president after the Republican nominee canceled several planned interviews and spent more than 30 minutes at the end of a town hall in Pennsylvania standing on stage swaying to music rather than taking questions.

Trump has recently backed out of interviews with NBC News and with 60 Minutes. His staff had been in talks with The Shade Room, an online outlet with a primarily young and Black audience, but were reportedly told that Trump would not be finalizing a date for the interview because he is “exhausted.”

During a rally in Grand Rapids on Friday, Harris, 59, hammered off Trump, 78, for canceling interviews and questioned whether he would be able to serve another four years as president.

“If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world,” Harris said.

The crowd in Grand Rapids loudly cheered when U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) asked if anyone had watched Harris’ interview with Fox News. Harris spoke to a group of reporters before the rally and filmed a one-on-one interview after stepping off stage in Grand Rapids.

But Harris and other speakers warned of a Trump “with no guardrails” if he is successful in seeking a second term, citing a comment Trump made during an appearance on Fox News in which he referred to Democrats as “the enemy within.”

“I always say, we have two enemies,” Trump said. “We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”

Stabenow said that “Donald Trump gets weirder and weirder, but you know what? He also gets scarier and scarier.”

“To be clear, we know who the real enemy from within is in America today, and it’s Donald Trump,” Stabenow said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been on her “ Driving Forward Blue Wall Bus Tour” through Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, took aim at a recent report that Trump, during his first term, had secretly sent a COVID-19 test machine to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early days of the pandemic.

“During COVID, he told states like us, when we were desperate for medical supplies, that we had to go find them ourselves. He said to us governors, ‘I am not the nation’s shipping clerk,’ when we were begging for supplies to save lives,” Whitmer said. “But at the same time, he was sending supplies to his pal Vladimir Putin. He betrayed us. He betrayed his oath of office.”

Whitmer appeared on stage with Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who is being challenged by GOP attorney Paul Hudson for the 3rd Congressional District seat, also spoke at the event.

Harris said the stakes are higher in November than they were in either the 2016 or 2020 elections, in which Trump also ran, citing a J uly U.S. Supreme Court decision that she said “basically told the former president he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House” before encouraging the audience to “imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

“We are clear: Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the privilege of standing behind the seal of the president,” Harris said, raising her voice.

This week has been one of the busiest in Michigan during the entire presidential campaign.

Harris held events later Friday in Lansing and Oakland County. She is scheduled to be in Detroit on Saturday. Trump rallied supporters in Detroit on Friday night.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.