Vice President Kamala Harris has positioned herself as the “underdog” in the presidential race and called her Republican opponent Donald Trump “just plain crazy.” Trump has also described Harris as “evil,” “sick” and “insane,” with the rivals exchanging harsh words from afar on Saturday.
The showdown capped a tumultuous week that saw Ms Harris rise to the top of the Democratic field after President Joe Biden, 81, gave up on reelection under mounting pressure from his fellow Democrats. Her emergence erased Mr Trump’s lead over Mr Biden in just a few days, according to a series of polls.
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Speaking at a private fundraiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, headlined by singer-songwriter James Taylor, Harris said many of the comments made by Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, were “just bizarre.”
Her portrayal of her opponent as “weird” is part of a new Democratic strategy: Harris’ campaign called Trump “old and pretty weird” after his appearance on Fox News on Thursday, and at least one supporter showed up outside the event on Saturday holding a sign that read, “Trump is Weird.”
As she did during the campaign blitz this week, Harris, 59, again contrasted her record as a prosecutor with Trump’s as a convicted felon, saying her candidacy was about the future while Trump, 78, wants to take the country back to its “dark past.”
Hours later, Trump unleashed a string of hyperbolic attacks on Harris at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he declared she would “destroy the country” and criticized her on issues ranging from public safety to immigration.
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“The American Dream will die if a crazy liberal like Kamala Harris gets elected,” Trump said, adding that Harris is “even worse than Biden.”
The former president’s speech was filled with familiar grievances and false claims of election fraud, making it clear that his brief call for unity after the assassination attempt two weeks ago had completely evaporated.
“I want to be nice. People say, ‘I think he’s changed,'” Trump said. “No, I haven’t changed. Maybe I’ve gotten worse.”
The former president’s event, held at an 8,000-seat ice hockey arena, followed a U.S. Secret Service recommendation to avoid large outdoor events following an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump said on his website Truth Social on Saturday that he would continue to hold outdoor rallies and that the Secret Service had “agreed to significantly increase its operations” to protect the president.
Minnesota has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate in 52 years, but after Biden’s crushing defeat in the June 27 debate and his falling popularity in opinion polls, the Trump campaign saw the state as getting closer to electing the Republican presidential nominee.
But Harris’s take on the reins has reinvigorated a campaign that had largely stalled amid Democrats’ doubts about Biden’s chances of beating Trump and his ability to continue governing if he won.
Harris, the first Black woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president, raised more than $100 million in the 36 hours since Biden decided to drop out of the race. Her campaign said Saturday’s fundraiser brought in more than $1.4 million from about 800 participants.
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Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun safety group with about 10 million members, told MSNBC on Saturday that more than 200,000 people tuned in to a Zoom call on Thursday to drum up support for Harris among women of color, raising more than $11 million.
Earlier, President Trump spoke at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville on Saturday, part of a broader Republican effort to court crypto enthusiasts ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump vowed to make the US the “cryptocurrency capital of the world,” a stark difference from his 2021 stance in which he called Bitcoin a “scam.” Trump warned that if the US doesn’t accept cryptocurrencies, China and other countries will, and promised favorable regulations for the crypto industry if elected. China currently bans cryptocurrencies.
Trump’s rally on Saturday followed a speech at a conservative gathering on Friday in which he told Christians that if they voted for him in November “four years from now you won’t have to vote anymore. We’re going to make it so much better that you won’t have to vote anymore.”
It was not clear what the former president meant, but Democrats were quick to seize on his words as evidence that he remains a threat to democracy four years after his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat led to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
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