Former President Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference in California on Friday, said the state is “a mess” because of his Democrat rival, Kamala Harris.
“The state of California is a mess, with people leaving, and nothing’s going to stop them,” Trump said from Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palo Verdes. “What they’ve done, Governor Gavin Newsom and Kamala, and I would say Kamala more so, she destroyed San Francisco and she destroyed the state.”
Harris is a former California attorney general and a district attorney in San Francisco, and Trump said Friday that the city and state have been ruined by her actions.
“Decades ago, San Francisco was known as one of the most beautiful cities anywhere in the world,” he said. “Now you see what’s happened, and it can be brought back, just like our country can be brought back because we’re a nation in decline.”
Crime and immigration have hit California hard, said Trump, describing Harris as the “godmother of sanctuary cities.”
“She was right out there at the forefront and also the movement of defunding the police,” Trump said, adding that Harris “refused” to prosecute a string of violent criminals, instead choosing to pursue plea deals.
“The only one they don’t make a plea deal with is Trump,” he said. “They go after their political opponents, especially when they haven’t done anything wrong. You saw more charges were dropped yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia. … The documents case in Florida, the case was thrown out.”
As a result, Trump said the San Francisco Police Officers Association refused to back Harris.
“I have almost every police group in the United States,” he said.
Harris, he added, has publicly endorsed the defund-the-police movement.
“Anybody that was even in favor of defunding the police for one month, let alone her entire career, should never be president of the United States,” said Trump. “She supported a plan to cut the Los Angeles Police Department by at least $150 million, and ideally, more.”
Trump also argued that “thanks to” Harris, crime and drug overdose rates in the U.S. went up “by 40, 50, and 60%” and murder has reached an “all-time high.”
In addition, Trump railed about Harris’ actions at the border, stating that the administration is flying immigrants into the U.S.
“Nobody knew that they were secretly flying in hundreds of thousands of people, some of the worst murderers and terrorists you’ve ever seen,” said Trump. “When they tell you about their borders a little bit better than it used to be, they only did that for election reasons.”
He also insisted that countries are taking prisoners from their jails and using them as a dumping ground under Harris.
“They flew them in right over the top of the border guards, and they’re doing it right now,” he said. “They’re doing it right now in Springfield, Ohio., [where] 20,000 illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life. They’ve destroyed the place, and people don’t like to talk about it, because even the town doesn’t like to talk about it, because it sounds so bad for the town.”
Trump further Friday railed about the debate, while defending his numbers on crime, the economy and the border, and accused Harris of destroying the nation’s economy.
“California has the highest inflation, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the most illegal aliens, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, and it ranks as the third worst state to start a business,” he said. “[This is] what Kamala Harris’s policies will do to America. The cost of living here is nearly 40% higher than the national average, and the cost of housing is 97% higher.”
