He’s gearing to win.
At his first campaign rally following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the re-election race, Donald Trump sharply targeted Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Addressing his supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump declared, “We’ve now taken down the worst president in U.S. history, Joe Biden. Our next opponent is ‘lyin’ Kamala Harris … the most incompetent and far-left vice president ever.”
During his 90-minute speech, Trump deviated from the previously proposed positive and unifying tone, which he and other Republicans had suggested adopting after his recent assassination attempt. He often mispronounced Harris’s name and, referencing his old NBC show The Apprentice, humorously declared, “Kamala, you’re fired!”
Trump made it clear he was abandoning the gentler approach. “They say I became nicer after I got shot, but with these people, you can’t be too nice,” he said. His comments were met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd, which cheered loudly as he launched into a scathing critique of Harris’s career.
He mocked Harris for her initial failure to pass the bar exam and criticized her tenure as San Francisco’s district attorney, claiming she made the city worse despite its earlier prosperity during her time in office from 2004 to 2011. “San Francisco used to be the best city in America,” Trump said. “Now it’s not a livable place.”
In response, Harris’s campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa condemned Trump’s speech as “unhinged and bizarre,” comparing it to “praise for the ‘late great’ Hannibal Lecter.”
Trump also attacked Harris’s progressive policy proposals, including expanded health care coverage, positioning her as more leftist than Senator Bernie Sanders. “If you want socialist health care, rampant inflation, the collapse of American energy, and a radical leftist as president, Kamala Harris is your candidate,” Trump said.
Trump criticized Harris’s performance as the “border czar,” a role in which she was responsible for addressing the root causes of migration from Central America. He claimed she failed to implement necessary policies, arguing, “No one who allows such criminals into America should ever be trusted with the presidency.”
Trump invited Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, to speak. Judd criticized Harris for not following his policy recommendations and endorsed Trump as the preferred presidential choice.
Focusing on Harris rather than Biden, Trump argued that Democrats had undermined democracy by replacing Biden due to his poor polling. Facing criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Trump suggested that Democrats might substitute Harris if she fell behind in the polls.
Trump also addressed Harris’s campaign strategy, which contrasts a prosecutor with someone facing multiple felony charges. “Their campaign is portraying me as the convicted felon and her as the prosecutor. I don’t think people will fall for that,” Trump concluded.
