Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pennsylvania, September 29, 2024. Agence France-Presse
ERIE, United States — Donald Trump on Sunday used a speech in key swing state Pennsylvania to urge a “violent” police crackdown on crime in the United States and repeated his new insult for Kamala Harris, calling her mentally disabled.
Pennsylvania is considered the most important of the seven toss-up states that will likely decide the balance in November 5’s presidential election.
Harris, the Democratic candidate, was due to address supporters in another battleground, Nevada, later Sunday.
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Republican candidate Trump, who held a similar rally in swing state Wisconsin on Saturday, reprised his dark, racially charged message about an America crumbling under “invasion” by violent migrants and other criminals.
Recounting isolated — but widely publicized — incidents of thieves staging brazen daylight robberies of shops in major cities, Trump got a loud cheer when he said police should become “extraordinarily rough.”
Criminals, he said, “have to be taught” and this could be done “if you had one really violent day.”
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“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word would get out and it would end immediately,” Trump said.
“The police aren’t allowed to do their job” because “the liberal left won’t let them.”
As on Saturday in Wisconsin, Trump spent much of his speech painting a picture of a failing United States, inundated by what he said was the “massive number of savage criminal aliens that Kamala Harris has allowed to invade.”
He claimed “terrorists are pouring into our country” and cited “a big prison in the Congo, in Africa,” as the source of “a lot of people” last week.
Anti-immigrant sentiment has been at the core of Trump’s appeal in economically depressed, majority-white parts of the country ever since his 2016 presidential victory, but the rhetoric is turning ever more extreme as election day nears.
Following record numbers of illegal border crossings earlier in President Joe Biden’s administration, a tightening of rules — to the consternation of immigrant rights and civil liberties groups — led to a plunge in numbers this year.
Crime, including murder, is also in steep decline nationwide, the FBI says.
Trump has long prided himself on his ability to coin insulting nicknames or slurs for his opponents and on Sunday he repeated one that he aired on Saturday, calling former top California prosecutor and current Vice President Harris “mentally impaired.”
“Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Sad. But lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way,” Trump said to loud laughter from the crowd.