‘Dumb’: Trump takes several digs at Harris
Donald Trump has unleashed on his presidential race opponent Kamala Harris at a rally, questioning her intelligence and saying she will be easier to beat than Joe Biden.
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Former US president Donald Trump has unleashed on his presidential race opponent Kamala Harris, saying he thinks she will be easier to beat than Joe Biden.
Mr Trump spoke for more than an hour at a rally in Montana today, and served up his usual feast of personal attacks on his opponents.
At one stage he even claimed that the US would become a “full-blown communist country” under a Harris administration, and before that he asked for a crowd vote on whether Joe Biden should be known as “Sleepy Joe or Crooked Joe”.
“We’re going to evict crazy Kamala, and we’re gonna get Joe Biden out of the White House,” said Mr Trump.
“I’d rather run against her – I think she’s easier to beat (thank Mr Biden).”
Mr Trump also took another dig at Ms Harris, who is yet to do a sit-down media interview since becoming the presidential candidate. She said this week she was planning to do this before the end of the month.
“Since becoming a presidential candidate, she has refused to do a single interview,” he said.
“You know why? She’s dumb? Or held a single press conference – she won’t hold the press conference. She won’t do it … If you can’t do a press conference, you cannot be president.”
Mr Trump vowed that the moment he took the oath as president he would “seal the border, stop the invasion (of illegal immigrants) and send the illegal aliens back home where they belong”.
“Under the so-called border tsar Harris, illegal immigrants are coming into America by the millions and millions,” he said.
“They’re coming from prisons and coming from jails. They’re coming from all over the place. They’re coming from countries we’ve never even heard of, most of the people in this room have never heard that. (They’re) coming from some very bad places, evil places. Every day, Kamala is letting migrant criminals roam free to assault, rape, mutilated, kill. Our citizens.”
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‘WE ARE THE UNDERDOG’: HARRIS RALLIES THE FAITHFUL IN ARIZONA
US Vice President Kamala Harris has conceded her party is the underdog in the 2024 presidential race, but has vowed to rise to the challenge with “hard work and joy”.
Appearing at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the pair both took swipes at former president and current candidate Donald Trump and his policies.
“We are the underdog,” she said. “Hard work is good work and we will do it with joy.”
Ms Harris spoke about her plans to address issues such as cost of living, climate crisis, healthcare, tribal sovereignty, voting freedom, and abortion rights.
“When I am President of the United States. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedoms for every woman in America. I will sign it into law,” she said.
She also defended her record on border security, drawing attention to her experience as an attorney general in California.
“I was attorney general of a border state. I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels and human traffickers,” she said.
“I prosecuted them in case after case and I won. So I know what I’m talking about.”
She also promised to fix the US’s broken immigration system, saying “we know what it takes to fix it: comprehensive reform that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”
Her stance on gun control drew a huge response from the crowd.
“We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence will finally pass an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red flag laws,” she said.
Ms Harris also vowed to fight for middle and working class America.
“Unlike Donald Trump, I will always put the middle class and working families first,” she said.
“Donald Trump, be very clear, intends to move us backward. And we’re not going back.”
Speaking before Ms Harris, Mr Walz called on the crowd to “beat the hell out of him (Mr Trump) at the ballot box”.
“To be very clear about this, he doesn’t know the first thing about service. It’s hard to provide service when you’re too busy serving only yourself,” he said.
“Again and again and again. Donald Trump weakens our country to strengthen his own hands. You’ve watched him mock our laws. You watched him show chaos and division at every opportunity, and that’s to say nothing of his record as president.”
Mr Walz was scathing of the former president’s handing of the Covid pandemic. He said Mr Trump “froze during Covid and pitted us in a hunger game against our neighbours” to survive.
“Our neighbours died,” he said.
“By failing to address Covid he drove the economy into the ground. And let’s be very clear, the statistics and the facts are clear about this – violent crime was up under Donald Trump, and we don’t even have to count his crimes in that to make it up.”
Mr Walz warned the US would be worse off with Mr Trump as president.
“If he goes back again, he’s not only going to let go where he left off. It is going to be much, much, much worse.”
“Trump’s not fighting for your family. He doesn’t give a damn, and his running mate shares the same dangerous twisted backward agenda.”
Introducing Ms Harris to the wild crowd, he paid tribute to the vice president.
“I want to say thank you, Madam Vice President, for the trust you placed in me,” he said.
“And I want to say something else, this incredible leader, this incredible woman has brought to this fight. She has brought back compassion and decency and humour and joy.”
Mr Trump is also due to appear at a rally in Montana today.
HARRIS REVEALS WHEN SHE WILL DO FIRST IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW
Kamala Harris is planning her first in-depth media interview later this month but is yet to announce who she will be sitting down with.
The news follows ongoing criticism from the Republicans for her silence, with presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump firing a personal shot during a press conference at his Florida home.
He said Ms Harris was “not smart enough to do a news conference”.
“And I’m sorry, we need smart people to lead this country,” said Mr Trump.
Ms Harris wouldn’t comment on Mr Trump’s press conference, saying “I am beyond trying to speculate about how he thinks,’ she said when asked about some of Trump’s criticism.”
However she did tell media that she was planning a sit-down interview in the coming weeks. She did not elaborate on who would be interviewing her or when it would happen.
“I’ve talked to my team. I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,” she said.
TRUMP CAMP’S DIG AT ‘WEIRD’ TACTICS FROM HARRIS, WALZ
Donald Trump’s campaign officials have taken a shot and Kamala Harris and her vice president pick Tim Walz over what they describe as “weird” attacks on Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
During his first appearance with Harris, Walz alluded to a viral meme that falsely claimed Mr Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy.
“I can’t wait to debate the guy,” said Mr Walz said.
“That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
Mr Trump’s official told media they thought voters would care more about inflation.
“Let’s going to why they’re doing the weird. They’re doing the weird because inflation is out of control,” the official told the New York Post.
“When you go to the store and see how expensive things are, you’re not like, ‘Oh, I heard some Democrat … post a meme saying something about weird,’ you’re saying, ‘I’m pissed off.’”
But the official didn’t stop there – describing Mr Walz and Ms Harris as “weird”.
“With Walz’s background, for example, very weird is having feminine products in elementary school boys’ bathrooms,” the official said, referring to the governor supporting putting tampons in both girls’ and boys’ bathrooms.
“There’s so much weirdness with just their obsession with tearing down so much of the cultural norms. It’s just, it’s a smokescreen. They’re trying to, they said they’re trying to ‘David Copperfield’ their way out of some really, really terrible policies.
“Have you see Kamala speak? That’s weird. That’s, that’s not presidential.”
‘THERE’S A STORM COMING’: ERIC TRUMP’S WARNING
Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump has doubled down on his father’s branding of this week’s US stock market fall as ‘the Kamala Crash’.
Eric Trump told the New York Post that the stock market woes were a sign of greater problems if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election.
“We live in a country that has a huge leak in the roof,” he said.
“And now imagine there’s a storm coming, because there’s always a storm coming. My father and I think it’s better to fix the damn hole before you start changing the crown molding in the basement. That’s what Harris wants to do.”
Earlier this week the stockmarket fell amid weak economic data and fears the US might be facing a recession.
Mr Trump linked this – and rising violent crimes across the country – to Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
“We went from Kamala Harris being laughed at universally by the media, to now being put up on this pedestal, in effectively a 48-hour period of time,” he told the Post.
“And I think the market saw that, you know. But then, if Donald Trump wins this election, our markets are going to rally. No question.”
REASON BIDEN FORCED OUT OF US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REVEALED
Joe Biden was forced out of the 2024 presidential election by the press, the Democratic Party, and donors, according to the president’s top campaign adviser.
Speaking for the first time since the stunning withdrawal, long-time adviser Anita Dunn said the decision to end the campaign was not because of his debate performance against Donald Trump or falling polls.
It was “absolutely” due to party leadership – like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama – ignoring the will of its voters, with the help of the US’s news media.
“So it was a bad debate, but it didn’t feel catastrophic at all, certainly in terms of voters,” Ms Dunn said.
“What did change it was 24 days of unremitting negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden … from his own party and from the press”.
“We were seeing an environment in the press that was just unremittingly negative. And nobody was covering Trump whatsoever. I mean, Donald Trump was out there doing and saying whatever he wanted to do and the press was like, ‘We don’t care’.”
Speaking to Politico’s Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Ms Dunn made no mention of Mr Biden’s mental acuity or physical decline as part of the decision-making process for dropping out.
Mr Biden also did not reveal specific reasons beyond “unifying the party” during his Oval Office address days after stepping down on July 21, local time.
Ms Dunn said everyone in the campaign had “figured out” that Mr Biden would be exiting the race well before the official announcement at 1.46pm, despite the president reportedly only telling staff officially one minute before it went live.
“But everyone had figured it out by then,” she said. “I would say Saturday night, Sunday morning.”
Ms Dunn said a strategy was in place for Mr Biden to continue governing and campaigning after the debate before “leaders of the party” decided to go public.
“That gave permission to other people to go public,” she said.
“And then you had this decision that the Democratic Party made to ignore their primary voters and ignore their primary process, and that was a very donor-driven thing.
When pressed on Mr Biden remaining “very angry” at the party elders behind the push, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries, Ms Dunn deflected saying: “But he is 1,000 per cent all-in for Kamala Harris.”
Ms Dunn added that she did not regard Mr Biden’s removal as a “coup”, as his replacement, Kamala Harris, remained “loyal and supportive” to the president.
“So if you’re going to have a coup, usually someone has to lead it. And she was 100 per cent terrifically loyal,” Ms Dunn said.
Ms Dunn also denied rumours that the Democratic Party had scheduled the debate early as an instigating factor to remove Mr Biden from the ticket.
“Okay, so that’s ludicrous,” she said. “The idea that we ever would have put him in that situation is just crazy.”
“I think all of us have a very good sense of Joe Biden and his strengths. And we felt coming out of the prep that he was fairly well prepared now. He also had a terrible cold that got worse in the course of the week.
“He was Covid tested I think more than one time by the time we got to Wednesday and it was a Thursday debate. Certainly, his voice started sounding raspy and he had a bad, bad cold that was not Covid but I think there was no question that it played a role. He didn’t feel well.”
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TRUMP, HARRIS AGREE TO DEBATE
Donald Trump sought to kickstart his campaign by challenging Kamala Harris to three debates before the presidential election.
In his first major event since Tim Walz was added to the Democratic ticket, Mr Trump attempted to goad Ms Harris in front of the camera to face off-script questioning from the media.
Both Mr Trump and Ms Harris had agreed to the debate scheduled on September 10, according to host ABC News.
“I don’t know if they’re gonna agree,” Mr Trump said of the other two dates.
“She hasn’t done an interview. She can’t do an interview. She’s barely competent.”
Ms Harris has not held an Unchoreographed campaign event since replacing Joe Biden, instead sticking to stage-managed rallies and highly produced videos.
It comes as a new Ipsos survey released Thursday, local time, found Mr Trump and Ms Harris “in a statistical dead heat for the presidency”.
The two were neck and neck among voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.
Mr Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in an open call seen as a way to reset a campaign reportedly “caught off guard” by Mr Biden’s ouster from the race.
Mr Trump proposed three debates on September 4, hosted by Fox News, September 10, hosted by ABC, and September 25, hosted by NBC.
“Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend,” ABC News said on Twitter/X.
BIDEN’S HOSTS CHAMPION BASEBALLERS
BODYCAM FOOTAGE SHOWS POLICE CONFRONT TRUMP SHOOTER
New police bodycam video shows police confronting Donald Trump’s would-be assassin seconds before he started shooting.
Matthew Thomas Crooks, 20, opened fire at Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 injuring the former US president’s ear.
New footage, obtained by Fox News Digital, shows the view of the incident from the eyes of a local police officer who climbed onto the roof of the building the shooter had been hiding on.
The Butler Township police officer can be seen being lifted up by a colleague and as he pushes himself up he takes a peek over the roof ledge of the AGR International building.
The officer quickly drops down to the ground and runs around the building presumably warning other authorities and bystanders nearby.
Read more: Watch bodycam footage
JD VANCE AND TIM WALZ TO DEBATE: TRUMP SAYS
Mr Trump said CBS has also agreed to host a debate between vice president candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz, though it was unclear if this has been agreed to by both sides.
“We also have CBS is going to do the vice presidential debate. So CBS will do a vice presidential,” Trump said.
“And, and I have to tell you, JD Vance has really stepped up. He’s doing a fantastic job.”
Mr Vance took reporters by surprise when he tried to confront Mr Walz, and Ms Harris on an airport tarmac.
“I figured I’d come by and one just get a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months,” Mr Vance told campaign reporters on the tarmac in Wisconsin after approaching Air Force Two.
“I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days.”
President Trump is taking questions from reporters as Kamala Harris hides behind a teleprompter.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 8, 2024
It's been 18 days since she answered real questions from the media. #wheresKamala
TRUMP AGREES TO ‘PEACEFUL TRANSFER’
Donald Trump said there would be a peaceful transfer of power after the US presidential vote — but immediately questioned whether there would be “honest elections.”
“Of course there’ll be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time,” Trump told a news conference, despite a mob of his supporters storming Congress in 2021 after his loss. “I just hope we’re going to have honest elections.
It comes after US President Joe Biden expressed doubt that there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Donald Trump loses the 2024 election.
In his first interview since ending his re-election bid, Mr Biden initially referred to a potential Trump victory before quickly catching himself.
“If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all,” he told CBS News Sunday Morning.
“I mean if Trump loses I’m not confident at all,” Mr Biden clarified in the interview, which will air in its entirety on Sunday, Washington DC time.
TRUMP QUESTIONED BY FBI
Elsewhere in the press conference, Mr Trump confirmed he has been interviewed by the FBI over the attempted assassination during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“They have. The FBI came to see me and I think they’ve done a very good job,” Mr Trump said.
The bureau confirmed Mr Trump would sit for a “standard victim interview” that would “get his perspective on what he observed, just like any other witness to the crime”.
The former president said he’s “pretty much recovered” after being shot in the right ear by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“It was a hell of a shot, but I’m a fast healer,” he said. “Pretty much recovered … I got very lucky. It just hit the lobe, as they call it.
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Originally published as ‘Dumb’: Trump takes several digs at Harris
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