Trump says he’s ‘entitled to personal attacks’ on Harris in rambling news conference
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Former President Trump said Thursday he thinks he’s “entitled to personal attacks” on Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he’s “very angry” at his Democratic rival because of the criminal charges he faces.
Trump was responding to a question during a news conference at his New Jersey golf club about whether his campaign needs more discipline, as he looked to saddle Harris with the unpopular economic record of President Biden.
“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 that she would weaponize the justice system against me and other people, very angry at her. I think I’m entitled to personal attacks,” Trump said.
“I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president,” he added.
Trump stuck close to his scripted economic message for more than half an hour, reading from a binder in front of him. Later, he veered into familiar stories he enjoys telling at his rallies. A day earlier, he had struggled to make a sustained case for his economic policies during a meandering speech that his campaign had billed as a major policy address.
“Kamala Harris is a radical California liberal who broke the economy, broke the border and broke the world, frankly,” Trump told reporters.
Trump was flanked by popular grocery items, including instant coffee, sugary breakfast cereals and pastries, laid out on tables as he highlighted the cost of items including food, car insurance and housing. At one point, as he talked about the 2020 election he lost, he noticed a box of cereal.
“I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time,” Trump said. “I’m going to take them back to my cottage.”
The event came one day after the Labor Department announced year-over-year inflation in July had reached its lowest level in more than three years — the latest sign that the worst inflation in four decades is fading.
But consumers are still feeling the effect of higher prices, something Trump’s campaign is banking on to motivate voters this fall.
Harris is planning her own economic policy speech Friday in North Carolina, promising to push for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries.
A small crowd of Trump supporters watched his news conference from the periphery, occasionally cheering him on. But without a crowd of thousands to please with red-meat attacks on his enemies, he stuck closer to his prepared remarks.
Hours before the news conference, Trump’s campaign leaders announced they were expanding his staff, bringing a number of former aides and outside advisors formally into the fold. Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz and Tim Murtaugh will advise the campaign’s senior leadership.
Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager during his 2016 run. Budowich and Pfeiffer are moving over from MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC. Bruesewitz produces pro-Trump content for a large social media following. And Murtaugh was the communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Summer has traditionally been the time for shake-ups in Trump campaigns. This year’s change comes weeks after the campaign was transformed by President Biden’s decision to end his candidacy and endorse Harris.
Trump gave his top advisors a vote of confidence Thursday, writing on his social media platform that his management team headed by Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles is “THE BEST.”
Trump spoke to the news media Thursday as he steps up his criticism of Harris for not holding a news conference or sitting down for interviews since she replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate.
The pressure is growing for Vice President Kamala Harris to release more details on her plans if she is elected president, especially in areas where she may differ from President Biden.
The vice president has barely engaged with reporters since becoming the Democratic nominee, though she travels with journalists aboard Air Force Two and sometimes answers shouted questions while boarding or leaving the plane for campaign stops.
In one brief interaction last week, she told reporters she wants “to get an interview together by the end of the month.”
Trump on Wednesday made little effort to stay on message at a rally in North Carolina that his campaign billed as a big economic address, mixing pledges to slash energy prices and “unleash economic abundance” with familiar off-script tangents.
He aired his frustration over the Democrats changing their presidential ticket. He repeatedly denigrated San Francisco, where Harris was once the district attorney, as “unlivable” and went after his rival in deeply personal terms, questioning her intelligence, saying she has “the laugh of a crazy person” and musing that Democrats were being “politically correct” in nominating for the presidency the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.
A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy and immigration, issues that he has put at the center of his case for returning to the White House.
At his news conference last week, Trump taunted his rival, boasted of the size of his crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the violent Capitol insurrection, and lashed out at questions about the enthusiasm Harris’ campaign has been generating. He spoke for more than an hour and made a number of false and misleading claims.
Colvin and Cooper write for the Associated Press.
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