Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump speaks to attendees at his rally in Charlotte on Wednesday. It was the former president’s first rally since President Joe Biden announced he was ending his re-election bid.
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Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump has unleashed his fury on Vice President Harris in Charlotte, North Carolina, describing her as “the new victim of failure.”
Trump repeatedly mispronounced Harris’s name, Kamala, while describing her as more radical than Biden and a “danger to democracy.”
“Something happened to me when I got shot,” he said at a rally Wednesday night. “I became nice. And when you deal with these people, they are very dangerous people when you deal with them. You can’t be too nice. You really can’t, so if you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice — is that OK?”
The crowd roared. They chanted: “Fight. Fight. Fight,” a rallying cry that echoed throughout his events after a failed assassination attempt.
Harris did not shy away from his own attacks. In first keynote speech As the likely nominee on Tuesday, Harris boasted about her background as a prosecutor and said that experience would come in handy against Trump.
“I’ve dealt with all kinds of perpetrators — predators who abuse women, scammers who defraud consumers, crooks who break the rules for their own benefit,” she said in Wisconsin. “So listen to me, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
On Wednesday, Trump responded. He wasn’t nice.
Personally, he also called her “lying Kamala Harris” and “the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history.”
He told supporters she was “a radical, crazy person” on issues like gun rights and abortion.
“You did everything wrong,” he said, as if speaking directly to her. “You are extremely free. And we don’t want you here. We don’t want you anywhere. Kamala. You are fired.”
This is Trump’s first rally since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race and just his second since the assassination attempt.
The visit also reflects the importance Trump places on North Carolina, a state he won twice. But the margin was so narrow in 2020 that Democrats saw an opportunity to win and campaigned heavily there as well.
