Connect with us

Politics

'Weak-on-crime liberal': Trump campaign hits back after Harris blames him for 'violent crime wave'

Published

on

'Weak-on-crime liberal': Trump campaign hits back after Harris blames him for 'violent crime wave'

The Trump campaign blasted Vice President Kamala Harris as a “liar” and “desperate” after her campaign released a TV ad claiming former President Trump’s policies brought in a “violent crime wave,” telling Fox News Digital Harris is an “open border, weak-on-crime liberal.” 

The Harris campaign, just a day after the vice president accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago, released a television ad focused on crime. The ad claims on Harris’ watch, “violent crime went down.” 

“Her record as district attorney and attorney general — locking up child abusers, online predators and violent offenders and shutting down international drug cartels,” the ad says. “Under Donald Trump? A violent crime wave. And Trump ordered MAGA extremists to kill the bipartisan border security deal.

“Trump just talks tough. Kamala Harris is tough.”

NEW HARRIS BORDER SECURITY ADS MARK 180 FROM YEARS OF LIBERAL IMMIGRATION ADVOCACY

Advertisement

Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Harris “a liar.” 

“The truth is Kamala and Biden reversed every single one of President Trump’s effective immigration policies immediately upon taking office and opened the border to criminals, terrorists and drug cartels,” Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “If Ms. Border Czar Harris really wanted to secure the border, why doesn’t she go back to Washington and do it today?

“She won’t, because she’s an open border, weak-on-crime liberal.”

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote that violent crime “isn’t down, it’s up almost 25% across 66 major U.S. cities while Kamala has presided over three of the four most murderous years in the last 25 years.”

Advertisement

DNC ATTENDEES WEIGH IN: ARE KAMALA HARRIS’ AND JOE BIDEN’S RECORDS ONE AND THE SAME?

“Under Kamala, illegals she let into the country are brutally raping and murdering our citizens,” the campaign continued, adding that, as district attorney, Harris “was known for being soft on crime, while San Francisco had the highest murder rate in a decade.”

The campaign said Harris became “the model” for “Soros-backed prosecutors across the country.” 

“Drug cartels haven’t been ‘shut down,’ they’ve ravaged our communities with deadly drugs flowing across the border in unprecedented numbers,” the campaign continued. “The Sinaloa Cartel has made record profit under Kamala.” 

As for the bipartisan border bill, the Trump campaign said it would have “put millions of illegals on the fast track to citizenship.”

Advertisement

Trump visited the border in Arizona Thursday. 

Trump’s campaign has referenced Americans like Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, who were all allegedly killed by illegal immigrants.

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, comforts Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Ariz. Rachel was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Rebecca Noble)

Two Venezuelan nationals — 21-year-old Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and 26-year-old Franklin Jose Peña Ramos — have been charged with capital murder in the death of 12-year-old Nungaray. The two men crossed illegally into the U.S. earlier this year and are accused of strangling the pre-teen to death in June.

Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant, was charged with 22-year-old Riley’s murder. Ibarra entered the U.S. through El Paso, Texas, in 2022 and was freed on border parole. He initially lived in New York City, where he was arrested for allegedly endangering a child prior to his move to Athens, Georgia.

Advertisement

Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another in connection to Riley’s murder.

The El Salvadoran national allegedly responsible for Morin’s death, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, was also in the country illegally, and, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was caught by Border Patrol three times within a matter of days in January 2023 and February 2023 and sent back to Mexico under Title 42 each time. 

Former President Trump, the Republican candidate for president, speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Ariz. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

He then successfully entered the U.S. as a gotaway, meaning he entered without being inspected, admitted or paroled by a U.S. immigration officer, in February 2023 near El Paso, Texas.

Advertisement

During his visit to Arizona Thursday, Trump invited Angel Moms to share stories about victims of illegal migrant crime. 

“We’ve done a lot of trips to the border over the years and told a lot of stories about border victims, including the stories of the amazing Angel Moms,” Trump said. “Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but we have never seen anything in terms of the volume and viciousness like what we are seeing now in our country.

“It is an onslaught of violence.” 

A Trump campaign official told Fox News Digital the campaign’s strategy will be to “continue to hammer home immigration and Kamala’s dereliction of duty at the border.” 

Advertisement

Politics

Trump plans to meet with Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado next week

Published

on

Trump plans to meet with Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado next week

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in Washington next week.

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Trump was asked if he intends to meet with Machado after the U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Well, I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump said.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on January 9, 2025. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)

Advertisement

This will be Trump’s first meeting with Machado, who the U.S. president stated “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to lead.

According to reports, Trump’s refusal to support Machado was linked to her accepting the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump believed he deserved.

But Trump later told NBC News that while he believed Machado should not have won the award, her acceptance of the prize had “nothing to do with my decision” about the prospect of her leading Venezuela.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Politics

California sues Trump administration over ‘baseless and cruel’ freezing of child-care funds

Published

on

California sues Trump administration over ‘baseless and cruel’ freezing of child-care funds

California is suing the Trump administration over its “baseless and cruel” decision to freeze $10 billion in federal funding for child care and family assistance allocated to California and four other Democratic-led states, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Thursday.

The lawsuit was filed jointly by the five states targeted by the freeze — California, New York, Minnesota, Illinois and Colorado — over the Trump administration’s allegations of widespread fraud within their welfare systems. California alone is facing a loss of about $5 billion in funding, including $1.4 billion for child-care programs.

The lawsuit alleges that the freeze is based on unfounded claims of fraud and infringes on Congress’ spending power as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This is just the latest example of Trump’s willingness to throw vulnerable children, vulnerable families and seniors under the bus if he thinks it will advance his vendetta against California and Democratic-led states,” Bonta said at a Thursday evening news conference.

The $10-billion funding freeze follows the administration’s decision to freeze $185 million in child-care funds to Minnesota, where federal officials allege that as much as half of the roughly $18 billion paid to 14 state-run programs since 2018 may have been fraudulent. Amid the fallout, Gov. Tim Walz has ordered a third-party audit and announced that he will not seek a third term.

Advertisement

Bonta said that letters sent by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announcing the freeze Tuesday provided no evidence to back up claims of widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in California. The freeze applies to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the Social Services Block Grant program and the Child Care and Development Fund.

“This is funding that California parents count on to get the safe and reliable child care they need so that they can go to work and provide for their families,” he said. “It’s funding that helps families on the brink of homelessness keep roofs over their heads.”

Bonta also raised concerns regarding Health and Human Services’ request that California turn over all documents associated with the state’s implementation of the three programs. This requires the state to share personally identifiable information about program participants, a move Bonta called “deeply concerning and also deeply questionable.”

“The administration doesn’t have the authority to override the established, lawful process our states have already gone through to submit plans and receive approval for these funds,” Bonta said. “It doesn’t have the authority to override the U.S. Constitution and trample Congress’ power of the purse.”

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Manhattan and marked the 53rd suit California had filed against the Trump administration since the president’s inauguration last January. It asks the court to block the funding freeze and the administration’s sweeping demands for documents and data.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Politics

Video: Trump Says ‘Only Time Will Tell’ How Long U.S. Controls Venezuela

Published

on

Video: Trump Says ‘Only Time Will Tell’ How Long U.S. Controls Venezuela

new video loaded: Trump Says ‘Only Time Will Tell’ How Long U.S. Controls Venezuela

transcript

transcript

Trump Says ‘Only Time Will Tell’ How Long U.S. Controls Venezuela

President Trump did not say exactly how long the the United states would control Venezuela, but said that it could last years.

“How Long do you think you’ll be running Venezuela?” “Only time will tell. Like three months. six months, a year, longer?” “I would say much longer than that.” “Much longer, and, and —” “We have to rebuild. You have to rebuild the country, and we will rebuild it in a very profitable way. We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need. I would love to go, yeah. I think at some point, it will be safe.” “What would trigger a decision to send ground troops into Venezuela?” “I wouldn’t want to tell you that because I can’t, I can’t give up information like that to a reporter. As good as you may be, I just can’t talk about that.” “Would you do it if you couldn’t get at the oil? Would you do it —” “If they’re treating us with great respect. As you know, we’re getting along very well with the administration that is there right now.” “Have you spoken to Delcy Rodríguez?” “I don’t want to comment on that, but Marco speaks to her all the time.”

Advertisement
President Trump did not say exactly how long the the United states would control Venezuela, but said that it could last years.

January 8, 2026

Continue Reading

Trending