WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Donald Trump honed his attacks on Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, in a speech at the Turning Point USA Believers\u2019 Summit in West Palm Beach Friday night, calling her \u201cthe most incompetent, unpopular and far-left vice president in American history,\u201d blaming her for high numbers of migrant apprehensions at the southern border and calling her a \u201cbum.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a bum three weeks ago,\u201d Trump said. \u201cShe was a bum, a failed vice president.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former president urged attendees at the faith-themed event to vote \u2014 \u201cVote early. Vote absentee. Vote on Election Day. I don\u2019t care how, but you have to get out and vote,\u201d he said \u2014 and promised that in four years, \u201cwe\u2019ll have it fixed so good you\u2019re not going to have to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump and other Republicans have long sought to blame Harris for illegal immigration, characterizing her as President Biden\u2019s \u201cborder czar.\u201d Though Biden asked Harris to negotiate with three Central American countries to help address the root causes of migration, he never put her in charge of overall border policy.<\/p>\n
That and other attacks Friday night continued Trump\u2019s efforts to paint Harris as deeply liberal. Earlier Friday, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump described Harris as a \u201cradical left person\u201d who \u201cdestroyed San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Harris, who served as the top prosecutor in San Francisco and was later elected California attorney general, has a more complicated political story. She won her first race for district attorney by running to the right of the incumbent, her former boss, whom she criticized as too soft on crime.<\/p>\n
Trump zeroed in on Harris\u2019s past comments about the \u201cdefund the police\u201d movement. In 2020, amid mass racial justice protests, Harris said the movement was \u201crightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign attacked Harris on the issue after she joined Biden on the Democratic ticket that year. But a spokesperson for Harris soon disavowed her earlier comments, saying Biden and Harris \u201cdo not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise.\u201d As president, Biden called for increasing police funding to put more police officers on the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump,\u201d James Singer, a spokesperson for Harris\u2019s campaign, said in a statement Friday night.<\/p>\n
Trump also continued to complain about Biden\u2019s withdrawal from the race, repeating claims that Democrats replacing Biden on the ticket amounts to a \u201ccoup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris has already secured the pledged support of the majority of the delegates she needs to win the Democratic nomination at the party\u2019s convention in Chicago next month. On Friday morning, she got an extra boost from the endorsements of Barack and Michelle Obama, the former president and first lady, the latest nationally prominent Democratic leaders to publicly embrace her candidacy.<\/p>\n
Recent polls have shown some positive signs for Harris, and a rush of new money and volunteers has flooded into what was once the Biden-Harris campaign. Her head-to-head numbers against Trump are better than Biden\u2019s were.<\/p>\n
Trump spoke extensively about Harris, whom he hammered in a speech at a rally earlier this week, at the Turning Point USA event. But he has also continued to rail against Biden this week, arguing that the Democratic switcheroo was unfair.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race. Now we have to start all over again,\u201d Trump said on his Truth Social platform earlier this week, asking whether the GOP should be \u201creimbursed for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
In West Palm Beach, Trump appeared without the bandage he wore on his ear after a gunman attempted to assassinate him at his Butler, Pa., rally. \u201cAs I think you can see, I\u2019ve recovered well and in fact just took off \u2014 the last bandage off of my ear,\u201d Trump said, making an \u201cughhh\u201d sound.<\/p>\n
Trump, who has a habit of inventing derogatory nicknames for his political opponents, again mispronounced Harris\u2019s first name, claiming, incorrectly, that there are \u201cnumerous ways\u201d to say it and saying he doesn\u2019t care if he mispronounces it.<\/p>\n
He also criticized Harris for declining to attend Netanyahu\u2019s recent address to Congress \u2014 and claimed she \u201cdoesn\u2019t like Jewish people,\u201d though her husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish.<\/p>\n
He repeated his false claims the 2020 election was rigged and said, \u201cwe\u2019re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd began to chant: \u201cFight! Fight! Fight!\u201d<\/p>\n
Offstage, Trump\u2019s campaign was contending with attacks on his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio). Vance has faced intense criticism in recent days for comments he made in 2021, when he said that Democrats without children, whom he characterized as \u201cchildless cat ladies who are miserable,\u201d should not control government. (He included Harris in his characterization, even though she has two stepchildren.)<\/p>\n
In an interview with Megyn Kelly on Friday, Vance said he has no gripe with women who have struggled to have children and supports efforts to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization, but defended his criticism of those who decide not to have children.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I\u2019ve got nothing against cats. I\u2019ve got nothing against dogs. I\u2019ve got one dog at home, and I love him,\u201d Vance said. But he added: \u201cIt is true that we\u2019ve become anti-family. It is true that the left has become anti-child.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harris campaign announced that she would travel to Atlanta on Tuesday for an event, her sixth visit to the swing state of Georgia this year and her first since Biden dropped out of the race and she launched her presidential campaign. She\u2019s in the midst of an all-out push to identify a running mate ahead of the Democratic National Convention.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), a possible Harris running mate, made plans for an event Saturday in his battleground state. Harris\u2019s campaign said Shapiro will \u201ckick off a weekend of action in Pennsylvania to mark 100 days until the election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the Turning Point USA summit\u2019s location, just down the road from Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort, much of the crowd was more focused on religion than on politics. Only a handful of attendees wore red MAGA ball caps; more people wore T-shirts with Bible verses and psalm numbers on them than anything political.<\/p>\n
But Charlie Kirk, the Trump ally and Turning Point USA president, reminded attendees why they were there. \u201cOur mission is very simple. We exist to kick wokeism out of the American church.\u201d<\/p>\n
The audience booed, briefly, when Kirk mentioned Harris. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to boo. It\u2019s harder to register voters,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n
Harris \u201cstands against everything that we as Christians believe,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n
Rozsa reported from West Palm Beach, Fla. Knowles reported from Clearwater, Minn. Meckler reported from Washington.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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