Trump accuses Harris of anti-Semitism in overblown speech
Published: 27 Jul 2024, 23: 04
US presidential candidate Donald Trump falsely accused election rival Kamala Harris of being an anti-Semite who plans to allow the murder of newborn babies, in a speech meant to rally religious supporters Friday that quickly went off the rails.
The vice president, who is married to a Jewish man, has gained ground on Trump in polling since she replaced Joe Biden on the top of the Democratic ticket just days ago.
Former Republican president Trump dedicated much of his address at a religious convention in southern Florida to assailing Harris's record as a senator and as Biden's number two, but many of his attacks were smears untethered to reality.
Explaining why 59-year-old Harris had skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau's speech to the US Congress on Wednesday to instead honor a prior commitment, Trump accused her, baselessly, 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.
The remark -- coupled with his claim that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" in North Carolina on Wednesday -- marked an escalation in Trump's incendiary rhetoric, days after his campaign said an attempt on his life had given him a focus on unity.
The hour-long Friday speech, hosted by hard-right Turning Point Action, raised legitimate questions over Harris's previous statements on policing, immigration and the environment that placed her to the left of current Biden administration policy.
But it was marked by hyperbole and falsehood.
'Execute the baby'
Trump -- a convicted felon who is fighting multiple further indictments -- suggested baselessly that the Justice Department and FBI were "rounding up" Christians and anti-abortion activists and throwing them in jail 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."
But he saved his darkest vitriol for Harris, calling her a "bum" and a failed vice president who had rejected federal judges for being Catholic and would appoint "hardcore Marxists" to the Supreme Court.
He also accused her falsely 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, in perhaps his most egregious calumny.
78-year-old Trump, now the oldest major-party nominee in history, is scrambling to reorient an election against someone two decades his junior, having expected to face an 81-year-old incumbent Biden beset by concerns over infirmity.
Just last week, the former reality TV star was in cruise control as he accepted a hero's welcome -- and the official presidential nomination -- at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
Crowning glory
His crowning glory came a week after a gunman nearly killed him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania -- an extraordinary incident that Trump vowed Friday to commemorate with "a big and beautiful" new rally in the town, although he did not give a date.
Seeking to become the first female president in US history, Harris is tasked with rapidly assembling a campaign against an opponent who has been in near permanent reelection mode since he became president in 2016.
Trump's predecessor Barack Obama pledged support for Harris earlier Friday, as polls showed her closing the gap that Trump had built over Biden to make the race a statistical tie.
A top California prosecutor and senator before being elected the country's first female and first Black and South Asian vice president, Harris has highlighted Trump's criminal conviction and what she said Thursday is a Republican attack on "hard-fought freedoms" in US society.
Democrats leapt on a Trump campaign announcement late Thursday that cast into doubt whether he will debate Harris.
"It shows that he's afraid," Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a major Harris campaign advocate, told MSNBC.
"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."
US president Joe Biden pauses as he concludes his address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, 24 July, 2024, about his decision to drop his Democratic presidential reelection bid. Reuters
US president Joe Biden addressed the nation on Wednesday for the first time since dropping his reelection bid, saying he decided to forgo personal ambition to save democracy in a sedate Oval Office speech that contrasted with the rough-and-tumble campaign.
Shortly before the speech, Republican Donald Trump laid into Democratic rival Kamala Harris in his first rally since she replaced Biden atop the ticket, signaling a bare-knuckled campaign ahead of the 5 November election.
Trump branded Harris a "radical left lunatic" after she had dominated the campaign the two previous days with withering attacks on him that pointedly raised his felony convictions, his liability for sexual abuse, and fraud judgments against his business, charitable foundation and private university.
Momentum grew for the Harris campaign as NBC News said on Thursday that former President Barack Obama planned to soon endorse Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate.
"Aides to Obama and Harris also have discussed arranging for the two of them to appear together on the campaign trail, though no date has been set," it said.
Biden said he believed he deserved to be reelected based on his first-term record, but his love of country led him to step aside.
"I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation," Biden said, after having resisting calls from within the party to quit the race after his poor showing in a 27 June debate with Trump.
Biden, at 81 the oldest president in US history, was greeted with cheers, applause and music in the Rose Garden after the address, as his staff had converged on the White House for a viewing party.
Trump was less kind, saying in a post on his Truth Social platform that Biden's speech was "barely understandable and sooo bad!"
After spending much of the campaign attacking Biden as old and feeble, Trump, 78, now faces a younger candidate in Harris, 59, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president.
Energising many Democrats as potentially the first woman to take the White House, Harris quickly consolidated the party behind her, as her campaign said it had raised USD 126 million since Sunday, with 64 per cent of donors making their first contribution of the 2024 campaign.
With no challengers for the nomination, she won the backing of party delegates on Monday, a day after Biden's announcement.
The next highly anticipated development will be Harris' choice of a vice-presidential candidate to counter Trump's selection of Ohio senator JD Vance.
Among those being mentioned are Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The Democratic National Committee's rules committee agreed on a plan on Wednesday to formally nominate Harris as soon as 1 August - before the party's 19-22 August convention in Chicago - with Harris picking a running mate by 7 August.
Biden praised Harris as a strong leader who would make an effective president.
"She's experienced, she's tough, she's capable," he said. "She's been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country. Now the choice is up to you, the American people."
Trump tried to quash some of her momentum in an aggressive speech at a campaign rally.
"I'm not gonna be nice!" he told cheering supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, a battleground state where voting preferences can swing to either side.
On Tuesday Harris showed her willingness to throw a punch, contrasting her background as a prosecutor to his record as a convicted felon.
"Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?" she asked during a speech in Milwaukee.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday showed Harris with a lead of two percentage points over Trump, 44 per cent to 42 per cent. A CNN poll by SSRS showed Trump leading Harris, 49 per cent to 46 per cent. Both findings were within the polls' margins of error.
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