Washington: US presidential candidate Donald Trump made unfounded accusations against election rival Kamala Harris, claiming she is anti-Semitic and supports the murder of newborn babies. His speech, aimed at rallying religious supporters in southern Florida on Friday, quickly went off course.
Kamala Harris, who is married to a Jewish man, has been gaining ground in polls since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Trump, the former Republican president, devoted a significant portion of his speech at a religious convention to attacking Harris’s record as a senator and vice president, though many of his claims were baseless.
Trump criticized Harris for missing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, accusing her, without evidence, of anti-Semitism. “She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. She’s not going to change,” he said. This statement, along with a similar accusation in North Carolina earlier in the week, escalated Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric despite his campaign’s recent focus on unity following an alleged attempt on his life.
The hour-long speech, hosted by the right-wing group Turning Point Action, questioned Harris’s positions on policing, immigration, and the environment. However, it was also filled with exaggerations and falsehoods. Trump, a convicted felon facing multiple indictments, falsely claimed that the Justice Department and FBI were imprisoning Christians and anti-abortion activists for their beliefs. He labeled Biden’s exit from the election campaign a “coup” by Democrats and called America a “laughing stock.”
Also read: G20 Finance Ministers And Central Bank Presidents Conclude Meeting With Call For Global Tax Reforms
Trump reserved his harshest attacks for Harris, calling her a “bum” and a failed vice president who opposed federal judges for being Catholic and would appoint “hardcore Marxists” to the Supreme Court. He falsely accused her of wanting to force doctors to chemically castrate children and suggested she might cheat to win the election in November. “If Kamala Harris has her way, they will have a federal law for abortion, to rip the baby out of the womb in the eighth, ninth month and even after birth — execute the baby after birth,” he claimed, marking one of his most outrageous accusations.
At 78, Trump is now the oldest major-party nominee in history, striving to adjust his campaign strategy against a younger opponent, having anticipated facing 81-year-old incumbent Biden, who has faced concerns about his health. Last week, Trump was celebrated as he accepted the presidential nomination at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
