At his first rally since abandoning his reelection bid, President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared victory over Joe Biden and slammed Kamala Harris as “incompetent.”
The 78-year-old Trump wore a small bandage matching his skin tone over his right ear as he took the stage to address supporters at a packed arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he predicted he would win “a landslide victory.”
“As you all know, three days ago we officially defeated the worst president in the history of our country,” the former president told the excited crowd.
“He stepped down because he was losing badly in the polls,” Trump said of the 81-year-old president’s shock withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race.
The Republican candidate then suggested Biden had been pushed out by Democratic Party elites.
“But what actually happened was that Democratic leaders, in a very undemocratic move, said, ‘Get out or we’ll use the 25th Amendment to kick you out,’ and that’s what happened,” Trump argued.
Turning to the vice president, Trump declared, “We have a new victim to defeat: the liar Kamala Harris.”
Harris, 59, who was endorsed to run in Biden’s place shortly after Biden dropped out of the race, has secured enough Democratic delegate support to win the party’s nomination for president.
She is expected to be officially nominated as the Democratic nominee by Aug. 7 in a virtual roll call approved Wednesday by the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee.
Trump slammed Harris as “the most incompetent, far-left vice president in American history” and argued that she has played a key role in Biden administration policies that have led to record inflation and an increase in illegal immigration.
What you need to know about President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race:
“For three and a half years, Kamala Harris has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every Biden disaster,” the 45th president said.
“She’s a far-left lunatic who would destroy our country if she had the chance to get into office.”
“Kamala Harris is the most liberal elected official in the history of the United States,” Trump said, calling the vice president more “liberal” than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
Several times in his speech, Trump linked Harris to the Biden administration’s border policy, which polls have shown to be one of Biden’s biggest weaknesses.
“She was a border agent, but she never went to the border,” the former president noted.
“As border control officer, Kamala opened the border and allowed 20 million illegal immigrants from around the world to flood into our country,” he added.
Turning to the economy, Trump noted that Harris broke a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass Democrats’ $739 billion spending plan called the “Stop Inflation Act.”
“As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote that led to the worst inflation in half a century, that devastated middle-class families and, as you all know, hit every North Carolinian very hard,” Trump said.
The Republican candidate also criticized his potential opponent’s forays into foreign policy, arguing that the vice president was at least partly to blame for failing to stop Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Kamala Harris was sent to Europe to stop Russia from attacking Ukraine. What a joke,” Trump claimed.
“And how did that happen? Russia responded by invading just five days after the withdrawal.”
“[Russian President Vladimir] “President Putin laughed at him like he was nothing. She was nothing,” Trump claimed.
“Harris now wants to be promoted to bring another four years of chaos,” he said.
Some rally attendees told The Post they agreed with the former president that their lives have gotten worse under Biden and Harris.
“Salaries have definitely gone down since Biden took office,” Austin Davis, a 26-year-old GIS technician, told The Washington Post.
Michelle Smith, 57, said she believes Trump “has won the heart of America as he represents it” and that “illegal immigration is out of control.”
“There are too many homeless people. People can’t afford rent or groceries. It’s just awful,” said Robin Padgett, 55.
An update on President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race:
Introduced at Bojangles Arena by legendary former NASCAR driver and current race team owner Richard Childress, Trump briefly addressed the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left Trump and two others injured and one rally attendee dead.
“Bullets were flying,” Trump said of the horrific incident.
“It was a really tough, awful, frightening time,” he added.
He said Secret Service agents tried to put him on a stretcher after the shooting, but he refused.
“I said, ‘You’re not going to put me on a stretcher,'” Trump recalled.
“My shoe came off. They tackled me so hard,” he said of Secret Service agents who stormed onto the stage moments after gunshots rang out.
Near the end of the rally, Trump announced he had received the endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations.
In a letter handed to media at the event, NAPO president Mick McHale praised Trump as a “staunch and very public supporter of law enforcement.”
