Former President Trump said that President Biden had the “right” to run for re-election but that the Democrats “took it away,” and slammed his new opponent, Kamala Harris, as “the least respected, worst vice president in the history of our country.”
President Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday afternoon after completing private meetings with major media outlets. The Trump campaign said they wanted to hold the press conference while the media was already in Palm Beach because the Republican presidential nominee is “the most transparent candidate in history.”
President Trump said Thursday that the United States is in “the most dangerous time our country has ever seen.”
“We have someone running for president who hasn’t received a single vote, which is fine with me, but Joe Biden was elected and now they’ve elected another candidate,” Trump said. “Frankly, I’d like to run against another candidate, but that’s their choice.”
Trump holds Mar-a-Lago press conference in ‘contrast’ with Harris’ media-shyness
Trump and Harris’ 2024 presidential campaigns have run ads attacking each other over their policies on the southern US border. (Getty Images)
Trump described Harris as “a radical leftist at a level you’ve never seen before” and said of her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, “a radical leftist who takes positions that you don’t even believe exist.”
“He’s very involved in the transgender world, he’s very involved in a lot of different worlds that have to do with security. He doesn’t want to build a border, he doesn’t want to build a wall, he doesn’t want any form of security in this country,” Trump said. “He doesn’t care about people coming in from prisons, and she doesn’t care, probably because she doesn’t care at all.”
Harris officially became the candidate after Biden, under pressure from within his own party, ended his reelection campaign and endorsed her. The Democratic National Committee formally nominated her as the candidate this week.
“They took the presidency away from Joe Biden. I’m not a fan of Biden,” Trump said. “From a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, they took the presidency away from him. After the debate, people are saying he lost, he didn’t win.”
“It doesn’t matter if he could win or not, he had the right to run and they took that away and said they were going to invoke the 25th Amendment,” Trump continued.
Trump said the pressure from within the Democratic Party and “what they’ve done” has been “pretty incredible.”
18 days: Kamala Harris hasn’t held a press conference since emerging as the presumptive Democratic nominee
“Right now I’m running against another candidate and we’re in the lead. I’m not going to complain because I’m in the lead,” he said. “I’m saying this is very serious, very egregious, that we have a country with a constitution that we cherish, we cherish this constitution, and to have it done this way is very serious.”
Trump said he thought Democrats “would have gone to the polls” or “there would have been a primary system.”
“But you take that away from him like he’s a child?” Trump said, adding that Biden is “a very angry man right now.”
“He’s not happy with Obama, he’s not happy with Nancy Pelosi,” Trump said. “He’s not happy with any of the people who said, ‘Get out.’ He’s very unhappy, very angry.”
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Trump said he believes Biden is also “disparaging” Harris.
“He’s trying to look good, but doing that is very bad for the country,” Trump said. “You know, I’m no fan of his, and his debates were tough, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take it lightly.”
Trump added: “Go vote and do something. He got 14 million votes. She got zero.”
“And she’s crashing,” Trump said.
JD Vance slams Harris for avoiding press on Wisconsin runway, calls Air Force Two ‘plane of the future’
“We’ve had the worst vice president, the least respected, the least admired, in the history of our country. The most unpopular vice president,” Trump said of Harris.
Trump also criticized Harris’ reluctance to engage with the media, having not held a formal press conference or given extensive interviews in the 18 days she has been the de facto Democratic nominee.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) (left) greets Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
“She hasn’t done any press conferences. You know why she doesn’t? Because she can’t do press conferences. She doesn’t know how to do press conferences,” Trump said. “She’s not smart enough to do press conferences.”
Trump said he was “very happy” to face Harris and said he was “hateful to have to defend” Biden, but again referenced the Constitution.
“We have a Constitution. It’s a very important document and we live by it. She doesn’t have the votes and I’m very happy to be running against her. I’m not going to complain from that standpoint. I hate to defend him, but he didn’t want to resign. He wanted to try and see if he could win,” Trump said. “They said, ‘You’re not going to win.’ After the debate they said, ‘You’re not going to win. You can’t win. You’re going to lose.'”
“They just picked on someone,” Trump said after Democrats successfully pressured Biden to drop out of the race.
U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Vice President Kamala Harris on the Truman Balcony at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, Thursday, July 4, 2024. (Tierney L. Cross)
Trump pointed to Harris’ unsuccessful 2020 Democratic presidential primary, saying she was “the first to drop out.”
“She was the first loser. Yeah, that’s why we call her the first loser. She was the first loser in the Democratic primary, the first to drop out, she dropped out. She had no votes, she had no support, and by the way, she was a bad debater. A very bad debater,” Trump said. “That’s not something I’m looking forward to. But she was a bad debater. Obviously a bad debater. She didn’t make it to Iowa for some reason.”
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Trump said he believes Biden “regrets” picking Harris as his vice president.
“He picked her, but she also rebelled against him. She worked with people who wanted to get rid of him,” Trump said. “But if she doesn’t get the votes, she could lose the primary. In other words, there were 14 or 15 of them. She could be the first to drop out and then be selected to run for president.”
Trump added: “To me, this actually looks unconstitutional. Maybe it’s not.”
