Trump sharpens his weapons against new rival Kamala Harris

Former US President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump answers questions during the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Chicago, Illinois, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP)

Forced to formulate a new electoral strategy less than 100 days before the US presidential election, Donald Trump will take part in two campaign events on Wednesday, with new opponent Kamala Harris in his sights.

The Republican’s race for the White House was thrown into chaos on July 21 when US President Joe Biden, 81, withdrew his candidacy, backing Vice President Harris as the Democratic nominee.

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Trump, who had placed Biden’s health at the heart of the election, now finds himself up against someone almost two decades his junior, a trailblazer who became the country’s first Black, woman and South Asian-origin vice president.

The seismic shake-up has forced Trump and the Republicans to recalibrate rapidly, and it appears that they are struggling to settle on a line of attack.

As “Lyin’ Kamala,” “Laughin’ Kamala” and “Crazy Kamala” all failed to stick, Trump’s broadsides have become increasingly incendiary, extreme and untethered to reality.

Multiple times in the last week, Trump has falsely accused the vice president of being anti-Semitic — despite her decade-long marriage to a Jewish man, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff — and has claimed outrageously that she supports the murder of newborn babies.

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On Wednesday he took to social media to accuse Harris — who belongs to an administration that is led by a famously devout Catholic — of “literally” persecuting Catholics.

Trump and his Republicans have also launched more traditional attacks, highlighting Harris’s pivots on positions she took while trying to carve out a lane in the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential nominating contest.

Harris no longer supports abolishing private health insurance or a government buyback scheme for guns. She has also disavowed positions against fracking and in favor of expanding the Supreme Court.

“San Francisco liberal @VP Kamala Harris can’t decide where she stands on the most basic issues,” Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin posted on X.

And Trump suggested in an interview with Fox News that aired Monday and Tuesday that Harris would be considered weak by other world leaders.

‘Play toy’

“She’ll be like a play toy. They look at her and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’ They’re going to walk all over her,” he said.

He added, in a remark that has been interpreted by Trump’s opponents as a reference to her gender and race: “And I don’t want to say as to why. But a lot of people understand it.”

The messaging appears to have had little impact, as Harris has erased Trump’s lead in multiple key battleground states in the days since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

On the campaign trail, Trump flies to Chicago Wednesday to participate in a roundtable discussion with African American journalists that will be devoted to “the most pressing issues facing the Black community.”

According to his campaign, Trump will explain how he “accomplished more for Black Americans than any other president in recent history by implementing America First policies on the economy, immigration, energy, law and order and foreign policy.”

Later in the day, the former president will hold a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a battleground state where he narrowly survived an assassination attempt earlier this month.

Saturday will see him head to Atlanta, Georgia, where he will appear in a campaign event alongside running mate J.D. Vance.

The 39-year-old Ohio senator was once a staunch critic of Trump, but changed his tune to become one of his most vocal supporters.

Since his selection as Trump’s running mate, a series of videos of controversial past statements have emerged.

In one of them, Vance mocks “childless cat ladies,” suggesting that those without children were less fit to govern as they were “miserable” and had no “direct stake” in the country.

In recent remarks to donors Vance described Harris’s entry into the race for the White House as a “sucker punch” for the Republican camp, according to US media.

Harris, who has stopped in Milwaukee, Atlanta and Indianapolis in recent days, will be in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday evening to address a gathering of African-American students.