Appearing in public without a bandaged ear for the first time since he was shot in an assassination attempt, Donald Trump slammed Kamala Harris as a “lazy person” in a scathing speech in Florida on Friday.
The 78-year-old former president was speaking at a summit hosted by conservative Christian group Turning Point Action in West Palm Beach when he slammed the 59-year-old vice president.
“She was a bad person three weeks ago. She was a bad vice president, she had a failed administration, she was in charge of border control while millions of people were crossing the border,” Trump told the crowd about his likely 2024 Democratic opponent.
The former president also described Harris, who has secured the number of delegates needed to become the Democratic nominee, as “worse than Joe Biden and actually much more liberal.”
Republican presidential candidates have criticized Harris’ name, but she has repeatedly been accused of intentionally getting it wrong.
“By the way, there are different ways to pronounce her name. They explained to me, ‘You can say Kammala, or you can say Kamala,'” Trump claimed, although he has consistently used the latter, which is incorrect.
“I said, ‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter what I say,'” he continued.
“I don’t care if you pronounce it wrong.”
In addition to his criticism of Harris, Trump also used his speech to reflect on the assassination attempt that left him with an abrasion on his right ear.
Until Friday, Trump had been seen wearing bandages to hide his wounds.
He told the Turning Point Action crowd that he removed the bandages “for this group.”
“As you can see, I am recovering well and in fact I just removed the last of the bandages that I had on my ear,” Trump said. “I don’t know why I did it for this group, but that’s it. I think this is the end, and I hope it is.”
Trump has launched a number of attacks on the vice president since Biden gave up his reelection bid on Sunday and quickly endorsed Harris as his top Democratic candidate.
On Wednesday, he accused Harris of incompetence and nicknamed her “Lying Kamala Harris.”
Trump told The Washington Post on Monday that the two words he uses to describe the former California attorney general are “cruel and stupid.”
“That’s a bad combination,” he said.
Meanwhile, Harris fired back, criticising her political opponents at her first campaign rally earlier this week.
She told an audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday that her long career as a prosecutor gives her plenty of experience taking down “predators who abuse women, scammers who deceive consumers and con men who break the rules for their own personal gain.”
“So hear me when I say I know what type of person Donald Trump is,” Harris said, prompting chants of “Put him in jail!” from the route.
