Trump dismisses Harris surge, says honeymoon will end

Former President Trump held an hourlong press conference Thursday where he lambasted Vice President Harris as “incompetent” and appeared exasperated on multiple occasions at questions about Democrats’ newfound momentum after elevating Harris to the top of the ticket.

Trump spoke to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago estate in a free-wheeling event that saw him weigh in on the presidential race, debates, whether he is rethinking his strategy and some of his policy proposals on immigration and the economy.

He repeatedly bashed Harris’s intelligence, arguing she was worse than President Biden and claiming her election would push the country toward economic collapse and world war. 

But he seemed bothered by reporters who pointed out Harris’s surge in the polls or the enthusiasm she has generated during recent stops in battleground states, and he at one point floated that it was unconstitutional that Democrats had changed their candidate.

“Oh, give me a break,” Trump said when asked if he was worried about the size of Harris’s crowds. 

“Listen, I had 107,000 people in New Jersey, you didn’t report it. I’m so glad you asked. What did she have yesterday, 2,000 people?” Trump continued. “If I ever had 2,000 people, you’d say my campaign is finished.”

Harris has electrified the Democratic base since she replaced President Biden atop the ticket in late July. Her campaign said she drew a crowd of 14,000 people in Philadelphia on Tuesday alongside her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), and 15,000 people were in attendance for the vice president’s rally in Detroit on Wednesday.

Trump returned to the issue of crowd size multiple times throughout the press conference, including when he was asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol.

“The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken before was that day,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, it’s very hard to find a picture of that crowd. … If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours. Same real estate. Same everything. Same number of people, if not, we had more.”

Polling has shown Harris and Trump running neck and neck in national polls and in battleground states, but the former president repeatedly batted away any suggestions that he had to change his approach or ramp up his activity.

“I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all,” Trump said. “It’s the same policies. Open borders. Weak on crime. I think she’s worse than Biden.”

The former president predicted Harris’s “honeymoon period” would end eventually. He sought to tie her to San Francisco, a city that has dealt with issues of crime and homelessness and where Harris previously served as district attorney.

“Everything she’s touched has turned bad. She’s incompetent,” Trump said.

Even as Trump bashed Harris, he suggested it was unfair that she was allowed to be the new Democratic nominee over Biden, who was trailing in the polls when he announced on July 21 he would not seek a second term.

“The fact that you can get no votes, lose in the primary system, and you can then be picked to run for president seems to be unconstitutional,” Trump said.

The Trump campaign and its allies hailed the press conference as a success, arguing it showed Trump was willing and able to stand in front of cameras for an hour and field questions while Harris has avoided doing the same since she launched her candidacy roughly three weeks ago.

Multiple Trump aides posted photos on social media of cable news outlets taking Trump’s remarks live, bragging that Harris could not command similar attention.

But Harris campaign staff appeared happy to let Trump go on camera and remind voters why they may not like him as he sparred with reporters, minimized the role abortion may play in November and defended Jan. 6 rioters.

“Trump bragging about the size of his January 6th crowd! Saying his January 6th insurrection speech had more people than MLK Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream Speech.’ More Trump in front of a mic please,” Jim Messina, who ran the 2012 Obama campaign, posted on social platform X.