ATLANTA — Standing before a crowd of more than 10,000 in the battleground state of Georgia’s capital and largest city, Vice President Kamala Harris took an aggressive stance on an issue that she and President Biden have defended well over the past few years.
Harris began her 18-minute speech Tuesday by criticizing former President Trump on the issue of border security, which many Republicans see as the vice president’s political Achilles heel.
“In this race, I will proudly put my record to the test against him,” Harris said, highlighting her work on border security as California’s attorney general.
Harris argued that Republican presidential nominee Trump “talks big about securing the border but doesn’t actually do anything about it.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, held a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
She gave the example of a border security bill that was moving through Congress with bipartisan support earlier this year, only to be opposed by Republicans at the urging of President Trump.
“The bill was expected to pass, but at the last moment President Trump instructed his allies in the Senate to vote it down,” Harris said.
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She accused the former president of “destroying a bipartisan agreement because he thought it would help him win the election” and vowed that “as president, I will reinstate the border security bill that Donald Trump killed.”
Trump, his campaign and allied groups have repeatedly criticized Harris over the past week and a half over the surge of migrants crossing the southern border under Biden’s administration, since she replaced Biden to headline the Democratic National Convention.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a campaign rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Harris was tasked by Biden in 2021 to lead a diplomatic effort to address the issue. The “root causes” of migration Central American countries have dubbed Trump the “border czar” for his administration’s efforts to secure the borders, a title the White House has denied, but which has been dubbed by both the media and his Republican opponents.
Harris’ campaign says she’s not afraid to pick fights over immigration and border security.
But Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told Fox News that the campaign “looks forward to the opportunity to go head-to-head” with Harris on the issue.
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The Trump campaign quickly took to social media to respond to the vice president’s comments at the rally.
“Kamala actually brags about her record on immigration. Here are the facts: As head of Border Control, Kamala sent over 15 million illegal immigrants directly into our communities. She thinks illegal immigration is ‘not a crime.’ She wants to abolish ICE. She thinks immigrants are stupid,” the Trump campaign claimed.
Hours earlier, in its first major advertising push of the general election, the Trump campaign accused Harris of “letting us down” on border security.
In response to the ad, Harris campaign spokesperson Amar Moosa repeated the claim that Trump played a major role in “ripping up the toughest border deal in decades.”
“As a former district attorney, attorney general and now vice president, Kamala Harris has dedicated her career to catching and prosecuting violent criminals and making our communities safer. She will do the same as president,” Musa emphasized.
The Harris campaign released a new video focusing on border security as the vice president arrived at the Georgia State Convention Center in downtown Atlanta, the same venue where Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, will hold a rally on Saturday.
In the video, Harris claims she has “led to the lowest border crossings on record and has worked to keep communities safe throughout her career,” and accuses President Trump of “siding with drug traffickers and drug cartels to block the strongest and fairest border security reforms in decades.”
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The Trump campaign quickly condemned the video.
“Everything stated in Kamala’s border ad is a complete lie. The truth is that President Trump handed the most heavily forcible border in history to the Biden-Harris Administration, who then erased all of his good policies and opened up the border,” the Trump campaign charged. “As border chief, Kamala Harris oversaw the worst immigration crisis in American history, enabled drug cartels to smuggle deadly fentanyl across the border, and allowed more than 11 million illegal criminals and terrorists from around the world to enter the United States.”
Vance stepped up his attacks on Harris over border security during two stops in Nevada on Tuesday, vowing in Reno that he would “re-elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States within six months, and when he does, we will institute the largest deportation program in the history of the United States. Anyone who is here illegally must be deported.”
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio spoke at a campaign event in Reno, Nevada, on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Jay C. Hong)
On Thursday, Vance is scheduled to campaign in Arizona, which sits along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In response to Vance’s comments, the Democratic National Committee sent out an email titled, “JD Vance doesn’t care about border security. He was simply following President Trump’s orders to ‘kill’ a bipartisan border agreement.”
Picking a fight over border security might not seem like a wise strategy for the vice presidential team.
But a senior Harris campaign official told Fox News they are not afraid to get aggressive on immigration and the border, and accused Trump of having no credibility on the issues.
The Trump campaign is happy to fight.
“We look forward to the opportunity for President Trump, who has created the most secure border in history, to go head-to-head with Kamala Harris, the failed border secretary who has overseen the worst border crisis in history,” Leavitt argued. “On immigration, President Trump trumps Harris in every poll, because the American people know the truth about our immigration record.”
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