Trump attacks Harris and Walz during first news conference since Democratic ticket was announced

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday repeatedly demeaned opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “barely competent,” and made a string of false and often confusing claims about her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday repeatedly demeaned opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “barely competent,” and made a string of false and often confusing claims about her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “He has positions that it’s not even possible to believe they exist. He’s going for things that nobody’s even heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds,” Trump told reporters gathered for his first news conference since Harris announced Walz as her vice presidential pick. Over about an hour, the former president fielded a variety of questions and swerved into familiar talking points, from criticizing Democrats over immigration and the economy to a rant accusing the party of conspiring against President Joe Biden. He insisted that his campaign strategy is unchanged now that Harris is his opponent and said he preferred running against her, at one point speculating that his performance with White male voters would go “through the roof.” “I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all. It’s the same policies: open borders, weak on crime. I think she’s worse than Biden,” Trump said. “Because he got forced into the position. She was there long before.” Asked about his light campaign schedule, Trump dismissed the question as “stupid” before saying that he’s been busy taping commercials, talking on his phone, the radio and on television programs. He noted, too, that he was holding a news conference, his first in months, before saying Harris “is not smart enough” to do one of her own. His last campaign event was over the weekend, when he rallied with running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance. Vance, for his part, has campaigned in the same states as Harris and Walz this week. Trump also spent considerable time on Thursday complaining about media coverage of his campaign rallies, claiming at one point that the audience for his remarks on January 6, 2021 – shortly before the riots at the US Capitol – was his biggest ever and, in an absurd turn, compared favorably to the turnout for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.