Donald Trump tried Friday to turn a major celebratory event for Kamala Harris into an attack line tied to one of his favourite subjects, immigration.
Hours before the US vice-president was scheduled to appear with superstar Beyoncé in Houston, Trump made his own stop in Texas and accused Harris of hanging out with “woke celebrities” but not with the families of people who have been killed by migrants.
With 11 days until the election, Trump and Harris both took a detour from their travels in battleground states for brief forays into solidly Republican Texas. Neither believes the state is competitive, but they are using it as a backdrop to drive a message about the issues they hope voters will have front of mind when they cast ballots.
For Trump, that’s border security. For Harris, it’s abortion rights.
Trump’s trip to Texas, his second stop in a border state in two days, comes as the former US president escalates his already dark and apocalyptic rhetoric against illegal immigration.
“We’re like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people that they don’t want,” Trump told supporters Friday in Austin. Trump has continued to push the unfounded idea that foreign governments actively send criminals to the US.