Former President Donald Trump delivered a scathing review of Vice President Kamala Harris’ four years in office, trashing her record on immigration, the economy, trade and foreign policy just hours ahead of her D.C. address Tuesday.
Mr. Trump, appearing in Mar-a-Lago alongside people hurt by Biden-Harris policies, said Ms. Harris has failed on the most important issues facing the nation, particularly the border.
He announced if he’s elected his administration would seize the assets of the criminal cartels and use them to create a compensation fund for the victims of illegal immigrant crime.
“In less than four years, Kamala Harris has obliterated our borders … decimated the middle class, and runaway inflation has caused problems the likes of which we never thought possible. Bloodshed, squalor to our cities is common, and they’ve unleashed a war and chaos all over the world.”
He said she intends to “keep this misery going.”
Mr. Trump’s address was scheduled at the last minute and took place hours ahead of Ms. Harris’ planned speech in what her campaign has framed as a closing argument for her candidacy.
Election Day is one week away, and the race is essentially deadlocked nationally and in the seven battleground states likely to decide the winner.
Ms. Harris will speak with the White House in the background. The campaign says the site was selected to underscore the chaos that surrounds Mr. Trump as well as to make sure voters connect the image of Ms. Harris and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Harris Campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said the Ellipse site is a reminder of “how much a president can do for good and bad to shape the country and impact people’s lives.”
At Mar-a-Lago, the former president appeared before an array of signs pledging “Trump will fix it!” and told a crowded ballroom of supporters that the election was drawing to a close and the numbers from early mail-in ballots appeared favorable for him.
“We’ve had a good campaign,” Mr. Trump said, telling supporters he has been campaigning for 58 straight days.
He spent most of the event unloading on Ms. Harris, whom he characterized as “a train wreck” and “incompetent,” particularly on illegal immigration policy, which led to the release of 13,000 convicted migrants who crossed over the border during the Biden-Harris administration.
Mr. Trump introduced the mothers of a 12-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman who were murdered by migrants released under the Biden-Harris administration. Another featured speaker, the mother of a female service member killed during the deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Mr. Trump, while president, had threatened the Taliban with death if they ever harmed a U.S. soldier and reached out to the families of those wounded and killed on that August 2021 day.
The former president said the Harris campaign has been airing ads that falsely describe a Trump agenda that would cut Social Security and compare his packed Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday to a 1939 pro-Nazi event at the New York mecca.
“I just wish they would stop lying because the lies are vicious,” Mr. Trump said.
He touted leads in early state voting and boasted some states are in play that aren’t normally so. Some polls show single-digit leads for Ms. Harris in New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico, which typically vote for Democrats.
“I think people are saying it’s because we’re the party of common sense and we want to have strong borders, we want to have great elections, we want to have fairness. We don’t do things like we’re not going to have men playing in women’s sports,” he said.
Mr. Trump pledged to “fight like hell for the next seven days” and if he wins he’ll fight even harder the next four years to turn the country around. “And we are going to make this country greater than it has ever been.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.