Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he feels “entitled to make personal attacks” on his Democratic rival, saying he is “very angry” with Vice President Kamala Harris and questioning her intelligence.
Trump was asked during a news conference if his campaign needs more discipline as it faces a Democratic ticket that has grown more energetic since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee.
“As far as the personal attacks, I’m very angry at her because of what she’s done to the country. I’m very angry at her for weaponizing the justice system against me and other people, I’m very angry at her. I think I deserve the personal attacks,” Trump said at his New Jersey golf club, where he invited reporters in his effort to hold Harris responsible for Biden’s unpopular economic record.
“I don’t have great respect for her intelligence, and I think she would be a very bad president,” he said.
There is no evidence that Biden or Harris have weaponized the criminal justice system to target Trump, who has vowed to retaliate with criminal investigations against Biden and his relatives if he wins.
Trump also questioned Democrats’ description of him and fellow Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as “weird.” He said Harris is “weird in her policy.”
For more than half an hour, Trump stuck to his written economic message and read from a binder in front of him. Later, he recounted familiar anecdotes he recounts at his rallies. A day earlier, he had struggled to make a coherent case for his economic policies while delivering a meandering speech his campaign billed as a major policy address.
“Kamala Harris is a radical California liberal who broke the economy, broke the border and, frankly, broke the world,” Trump told reporters.
The posters held up popular grocery store items with Trump, including coffee, breakfast cereal and pastries, while he highlighted the cost of everything from food to car insurance and housing. The posters showed rising prices of grocery items.
At one point, when Trump was talking about the 2020 election, which he lost, he happened to look at a box of cereal.
“I haven’t seen the Cheerios in a while. I’m taking them back to my cottage,” Trump said.
As he turned to go back inside, Trump did not answer questions about when he last went grocery shopping.
The incident came a day after the Labor Department announced year-on-year inflation in July fell to the lowest level in more than three years — the latest sign that the worst price hike in four decades is fizzling out.
But consumers are still feeling the impact of higher prices — something Trump’s campaign is counting on to motivate voters this fall.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that Americans trust Trump more than Harris to handle the economy and immigration, issues he has placed at the center of his case to return to the White House.
Harris plans to give her own economic policy speech in North Carolina on Friday, in which she will promise to impose a federal ban on price gouging on groceries.
“People don’t know who he is,” Trump said.
A small crowd of Trump’s supporters watched his news conference from the perimeter, occasionally cheering him on. But without a crowd of thousands to cheer him on with red meat attacks on his enemies, Trump stuck close to his prepared remarks.
Trump continued to make derogatory comments about Harris and Biden at an evening event dedicated to Jewish voters, where he was introduced by GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson to an audience that included a Holocaust survivor.
Hours before the news conference, Trump’s campaign leaders announced they were expanding their staff, formally adding several former aides and outside advisers to their team. Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budovich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruskewitz and Tim Murtaugh will advise the campaign’s senior leadership.
Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager during the 2016 campaign. Budovich and Pfeiffer come from MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC. Bruesewitz produces pro-Trump content for a large audience on social media. And Murtaugh was communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Trump’s past two campaigns saw shifts over the summer. This year’s shift came just weeks into the campaign, when Biden decided to end his re-election bid and endorse Harris.
Trump on Thursday gave a vote of confidence to his top advisers, writing on his social media platforms that his management team, led by Chris LaCivita and Suzy Wills, is “the best.”
Trump has intensified his criticism of Harris, telling the press that she has not held a news conference or sat down for an interview since Biden made way for her.
“I think I’ve been campaigning in a very quiet way,” Trump said when asked about criticism from Republicans who want him to focus less on personal attacks.
“Some of you will say, ‘He was babbling a lot,’” Trump told reporters. “I’m a very quiet person, believe it or not.”
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