Former President Donald Trump rambled Saturday through a list of complaints against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link Democratic opponents to illegal border crossings.
A day after Harris immigration talks on the US-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the US illegally, saying he was responsible for “destroying our borders.”
“I will free Wisconsin from the invasion of mass migrants,” he said. “We will liberate the country.”
The Republican candidate also stepped up his personal attacks on Harris, insulting him as “mentally flawed” and a “disaster.”
“Joe Biden is mentally retarded,” Trump said. “Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And when you think about it, only a mentally retarded person would allow that to happen in our country. Anyone who knows.”
Personal attacks have been a trend for Trump since Harris entered the race. In July, Trump fake asked Harris’ racial identity during a panel with the National Association of Black Journalists.
“I didn’t know he was Black until years ago when he was Black and now he wants to be known as Black,” Trump said at the time. “So I don’t know, is he Indian, or black?”
When asked interview with CBS News last month that he believes personal attacks will hurt people with voters, he responded, “No, I don’t think so.”
Trump, meanwhile, hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate into votes in Wisconsin and other key swing states. The Republican candidate has denounced those crossing the US-Mexico border as the “blood poison of the country” and vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump will do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.
Trump switches from topic to topic so quickly that it’s hard to keep track of what he’s saying. He talked about it both tried to kill told him and blamed the US Secret Service for not being able to hold large outdoor rallies instead of smaller indoor events. But he also gave asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body is better than President Biden’s, and the terrible flying nearby.
“Where did the fly come from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You change so fast. But we can’t take it back. We can’t take it back.”
Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where he announced his push more limited asylum claims surpassing Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris criticized Trump’s handling of the border during his presidency and opposed a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “would rather deal with problems than solve problems.”
“I have to sit there and listen” Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who put that? Fox News. They shouldn’t be allowed to put that. It’s all a lie. Everything they say is a lie.”
Trump claimed he didn’t know what Harris meant when he said it he is in charge to take children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents are separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border in a policy that has been globally condemned as inhumane and that Trump himself has implemented under pressure from his own party.
Harris, at a rally in San Francisco, told supporters there are “two very different visions for our nation” and that voters see it “every day on the campaign trail.”
“Donald Trump is the same tired show,” he said. “The same tired playbook we’ve heard for years.”
He said Trump is a “non-serious man.”
“But the consequences of putting him back in the White House are very serious,” he said.
The Harris campaign was there again challenging Trump for the second debate, this time in the form of a football themed television commercial. After the rally in Wisconsin, Trump went to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game on Saturday evening, and the Harris campaign premiered an ad during the game.
“Champions know anytime, anywhere, but losers laugh and waffle,” says the ad’s narrator.
