A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
With the first and probably only presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris now behind us, the sprint is on to campaign for votes, especially in those swing states.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week, Harris has been rallying supporters in North Carolina and will soon head to Pennsylvania. Trump, meanwhile, has gone to Arizona and now heads to Nevada.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to update us on all this postdebate campaigning. So, Danielle, as I said, I mean, maybe the only debate between Trump and Harris is now done and over with, and Trump said yesterday he will not do another debate. So what exactly did he say?
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Right. So in a paragraph-long post on Truth Social late yesterday afternoon, Trump, first off, insisted he won the debate. He compared Harris, who herself wants another debate, to a prize fighter who loses and demands a rematch. But the kicker here is that he closed with an all-caps line - there will be no third debate. Now, listeners will recall that in this week's debate, Harris successfully baited Trump. She got him off topic. She, at points, provoked him into yelling. And even prominent conservatives have criticized his performance. So since then, Harris is very much pushing for another opportunity to do that. Here she was at a rally in North Carolina yesterday.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate.
KURTZLEBEN: To be clear, there are no other debates scheduled right now. This cycle, with Democrats switching their candidate and Trump waffling for weeks on if and when he'd participate, there - only one date ever really got nailed down for these two.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, you brought up that Harris rally. I mean, what does her strategy look like now, since Tuesday's debate?
KURTZLEBEN: I mean, thus far, it's been a pretty typical postdebate run of swing states. Her campaign told my colleague, Tamara Keith, that the goal of some of these events is to cut into Trump's margins in red areas of swing states. She's headed soon to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., for example. Now, as for substance, she's really using the debate to attack Trump. At her rally in North Carolina yesterday - at one of those rallies - she jabbed Trump for saying he has, quote, "concepts of a plan" to replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Now, predebate, one criticism had been that she didn't have detailed enough plans. Well, now, with that concept soundbite, she's emphasizing the major holes in Trump's plans.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so that's Kamala Harris. What is Donald Trump's postdebate campaigning like?
KURTZLEBEN: For one thing, he's really leaning into economic messaging. Just this morning, he put out a video saying that Kamala's economic plan is Biden's economic plan. But also, at a Tucson rally yesterday, he announced a new policy - no tax on overtime pay.
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DONALD TRUMP: It's time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that's what we're doing because this is a good one.
KURTZLEBEN: But also, it's not clear exactly how that would work, and the campaign hasn't really communicated details.
MARTÍNEZ: Is - any idea, though, who exactly he's trying to reach with this new policy plan?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, yeah. I mean, you put this next to his idea to cut taxes on tips, and he's really looking for places to boost his support among the working class, which makes up a lot of his base - particularly the white working class. But economists have big questions about that tips plan, as well. I mean, when you look at his plans all together, he's proposed a lot of tax breaks - really, a mishmash of them - and economists are saying his policies would just add a lot to the deficit. As for the rest of his message, yesterday in Tucson, it was a typical Trump speech. Plus, he continued pushing that racist and baseless idea that immigrants are eating pets. Again, that's not true. City officials have told reporters they haven't seen evidence of this. Moving forward, I should add, he'll be in Las Vegas today, and he has a town hall planned in Michigan next week.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thanks.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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