US presidential candidate Donald Trump accused election rival Kamala Harris of being an anti-Semite and allowing the murder of newborn babies in a speech aimed at rallying religious supporters on Friday. This speech quickly went off the rails.
Vice President Harris, married to a Jewish man, has gained ground on Trump in polling since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket days ago. Former Republican president Trump dedicated much of his address at a religious convention in southern Florida to attacking Harris’s record as a senator and as Biden’s vice president. However, many of his accusations were unfounded.
By contrast, Kamala Harris stabbed Israel in the back in its hour of need.
Two days ago, she refused to attend the speech in Congress of the Prime Minister of Israel.
Together with Joe Biden, she gave billions of dollars to Iran and Hamas to fund their campaigns of terror.… pic.twitter.com/0BibtgNTJJ
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 27, 2024
Trump criticized Harris for skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress on Wednesday to honor a prior commitment, falsely accusing her of anti-Semitism. “She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. She’s not going to change,” he said.
This remark, along with his claim that Harris “is totally against the Jewish people” in North Carolina on Wednesday, marked an escalation in Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. This comes days after his campaign claimed an attempt on his life had given him a focus on unity.
Trump’s hour-long Friday speech, hosted by the hard-right Turning Point Action, raised questions over Harris’s previous statements on policing, immigration, and the environment. However, it was filled with hyperbole and falsehoods.
‘Execute the Baby’
Trump, who is fighting multiple indictments, suggested without evidence that the Justice Department and FBI were targeting Christians and anti-abortion activists for their “religious beliefs.” He also called Biden’s decision to exit the election campaign a “coup” by Democrats and said America was a “laughing stock.”
Trump saved his harshest criticism for Harris, calling her a “bum” and a failed vice president. He falsely accused her of wanting to force doctors to give chemical castration drugs to children and suggested she might cheat to win in November. “If Kamala Harris has her way, they will have a federal law for abortion, to rip the baby out of the womb in the eighth, ninth month, and even after birth — execute the baby after birth,” he claimed.
Crowning Glory
Trump, now the oldest major-party nominee in history at 78, is scrambling to reorient his campaign against a much younger opponent. Last week, he accepted the official presidential nomination at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
His “crowning glory” came a week after a gunman nearly killed him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump vowed Friday to commemorate the incident with “a big and beautiful” new rally in the town, though he did not give a date.
Kamala Harris, seeking to become the first female president in US history, is quickly assembling a campaign against an opponent who has been in near permanent reelection mode since 2016. Former President Barack Obama pledged support for Harris earlier Friday, as polls showed her closing the gap that Trump had built over Biden, making the race a statistical tie.
A top California prosecutor and senator before becoming the country’s first female and first Black and South Asian vice president, Harris highlighted Trump’s criminal conviction and what she described as a Republican attack on “hard-fought freedoms” in US society.
Democrats quickly responded to a Trump campaign announcement late Thursday that raised doubts about whether he will debate Harris. “It shows that he’s afraid,” said Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a major Harris campaign advocate. “It shows that he knows that if the two of them are on a stage together, it’s not going to end well for him.”
