Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold a press conference at his New Jersey golf club in his latest effort to steal the spotlight back from Democratic rival Kamala Harris, who has dominated headlines since her late entry into the race.
Trump’s event is aimed at drawing a contrast with Vice President Harris, who has rarely taken questions from reporters since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in late July.
Harris has said she plans to do her first formal press interview by the end of the month.
Trump held a similar press event at his Florida resort last week, where he spoke for more than an hour, criticising Harris over immigration and the economy.
Harris and Biden held a joint appearance on Thursday to announce price cuts for popular Medicare drugs.
Federal US officials have reached deals with drug companies to lower the price for 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs.
The drugs include the blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
Medicare spent $US50 billion ($A75 billion) covering the drugs last year.
It is a landmark deal for the Medicare program, which provides health care coverage for more than 67 million older and disabled people across the US.
More than half of voters in 2020 were over the age of 50 and healthcare consumes about 8 per cent of the average person’s spending, according to Pew Research Center and US Labor Department data.
“My entire career, I have worked to hold bad actors accountable and lower the cost of prescription drugs,” Harris said.
“Medicare can use that (collective bargaining) power to go toe-to-toe with Big Pharma and negotiate lower drug prices.”
Hours earlier, Trump’s campaign announced five hires including Corey Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s first campaign manager during his successful 2016 campaign.
Lewandowski voiced his excitement on joining the campaign, posting on X: “Let Trump, Be Trump!”
It was not immediately clear what those additions would mean for the campaign’s day-to-day operations and hierarchy.
One campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters, said the campaign needed more “soldiers” in the race’s closing months and that the hires were not indicative of any broader shake-up.
“Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh are all veterans of prior Trump campaigns and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical ticket in American history,” Trump co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
Trump intends to use Thursday’s press conference to criticise Harris over inflation and the economy, a campaign official said.
His campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday also was billed as being focused on the economy but Trump veered a number of times into other topics and personal attacks on Harris.
Harris is scheduled to deliver a speech on economic policy on Friday in North Carolina.
It will touch on lowering costs and “price gouging,” aides and advisers said.
Inflation has ebbed but higher prices since the COVID-19 pandemic have left US consumers smarting.
Consumer prices rose 2.9 per cent over the 12 months through July, and the category including prescription drugs gained roughly the same percentage.
with AP
Source Agencies
