On August 15, former US President Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said at a press conference in New Jersey, USA, that he believed he had the "right" to personally attack US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Harris. According to reports from the Associated Press, Vanity Fair and other US media, Trump has recently launched fierce attacks on Harris in public many times, causing controversy within the Republican Party, and some even questioned whether Trump suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after the assassination. When many Republicans hoped that he would make fewer personal attacks on Harris and more policy criticisms, Trump responded: "Whether you believe it or not, I am very calm."

When asked about his views on calls from within the Republican Party to reduce personal attacks on Harris, Trump said bluntly: "As for personal attacks, I am very angry with her because of what she has done to this country. I am angry with her because she will use the judicial system as a weapon against me and others. I am angry with her. I think I have the right to attack her personally." "I don't respect her intelligence very much, and I think she would be a bad president," Trump added, "They want me to be nice, but their people are not nice to me. They want to put me in jail."

Later that day, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign responded in a statement, saying that Trump "ran loudly against lowering the cost of food for middle-class and working-class Americans and the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and then reverted to his usual lies and delusions." The spokesperson said: "Not surprisingly, Trump did not want to defend his agenda at all."

Recent polls in the United States show that Harris' support rate is slightly higher than Trump's. An Associated Press poll released on the 15th found that Harris has an advantage over former President Trump in several leadership qualities such as "honesty" and "empathy", although Americans have slightly higher trust in Trump on economic and immigration issues. Data from The Hill on the 16th showed that Harris' support rate was 49%, higher than Trump's 47.2%. At the same time, Republicans have been dissatisfied with Trump's campaign strategy.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said in an interview on the 14th that he saw that the poll results had "broadly shifted" to Harris: Harris had more advantages for swing voters, and Trump "was out of control and committing political suicide."