Trump calls Harris “a bum” and “a failed vice president”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Former President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration and criminal justice issues Friday, his second speech since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and he called Harris a “bum” and a “failed vice president.”

“Three weeks ago, she was a bum. She was a bum. A failed vice president in a failed administration where millions of people crossed the border, and she was the border czar,” Trump said at Turning Point Action’s Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Much of the former president’s criticism of Harris was similar to his attacks on Biden. Trump said Harris mismanaged the southern border, disliked Jews and would appoint “Marxists” to the Supreme Court to strip Americans of their religious freedom. (The vice president’s husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, is the first Jewish spouse of a vice president and has played a prominent role in fighting anti-Semitism.)

These attacks were consistent with Republicans’ general, unproven claims that Democrats, if elected, would implement socialist or Marxist policies.

Republicans have attacked Harris’s performance as the Biden administration’s “border czar,” but the White House dismissed them, saying Harris’ role was to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration, not to solve the crisis at the southern border.

Trump also tried to link Harris to San Francisco, a city where she was formerly district attorney. He told attendees that if Harris was elected, “terrorists would appoint hundreds of far-left judges to impose their crazy liberal San Francisco values ​​on Americans across the country.”

The former president also called on religious voters to go to the polls this year in greater numbers than ever before, telling them: “You have tremendous power, you just don’t know it. You have to use that power. Christians are a group that is known not to vote very much. You have to go to the polls at least in this election. Get us to that beautiful White House.”

Trump called them “my wonderful Christians” and added: “Go vote. Just this once. You don’t have to do it again. Four more years. You know what? It will be sorted out. It will be fine. You don’t have to vote again.”

NBC News has reached out to the Trump team for clarification on these comments.

In a statement after Trump’s speech, a Harris campaign spokesperson said Trump “could not utter a word” during his speech and “insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans.” The spokesperson added that Trump “sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit next to in a restaurant – let alone the President of the United States.”

At Friday’s event, Trump’s ear bandage appeared to have been completely removed for the first time since he was assassinated in Pennsylvania nearly two weeks ago.

The former president even pointed out the lack of a bandage, telling the crowd, “I think you can see that I’ve recovered well and in fact I just removed the last bandage from my ear.”

Trump added that he had “taken a bullet for democracy.”