Kamala Harris says Trump supporters leave his rallies ‘out of boredom’ in crowd size taunt at the debate
Vice President Kamala Harris irritated former President Donald Trump during Tuesday night’s debate by saying his supporters leave his rallies early.
That comment led to one of the strangest claims Trump made during the debate: that the Haitian immigrants Biden and Harris allowed into the U.S. “eat pets.”
“They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets,” Trump shouted.
Harris moved from the border crisis to Trump rallies, noting that immigration is often a major topic at mass gatherings.
But then she also noted the odd variety of topics covered in Trump’s speeches, which normally last about 90 minutes.
“I’m going to invite you to one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s really interesting to watch,” she said. “You still see at his rallies he’ll talk about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He’ll talk about how windmills cause cancer.”
“And what you’ll also find is that people leave his meetings very quickly out of fatigue and boredom,” the Democratic candidate said.
Vice President Kamala Harris got under former President Donald Trump’s skin during Tuesday night’s debate by saying his supporters leave his rallies early
Former President Donald Trump (left) pushed back when Vice President Kamala Harris (right) said his supporters were leaving his rallies early — and claimed Harris was paying people to attend her rallies
“And I’ll tell you, there’s one thing you won’t hear him talk about: it’s you,” she added.
That claim made Trump sputter.
When asked why he was encouraging Republicans in Congress to thwart a border bill, Trump said he instead wanted to respond to Harris’ comment about the rallies.
“She said people are leaving. People aren’t going to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that are going, she’s busing them and paying them to be there,” Trump insisted.
Since Harris took President Joe Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket in late July, she’s drawn crowds comparable to Obama’s. That wasn’t the case during the 2020 presidential campaign, when President Joe Biden held small-scale events to raise awareness about COVID.
“People continue to show up at my rallies,” Trump continued. “We have the largest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the Harris-Walz campaign released an ad trolling Trump over the size of gatherings. The ad was based on comments from former President Barack Obama, who suggested that the ex-president’s “obsession with crowd size” had to do with the size of something else.
A Harris campaign ad released earlier on Tuesday showed images of sparsely populated bleachers at a Trump rally to get under the ex-president’s skin
It was largely about former President Barack Obama gesturing at the Democratic National Convention, suggesting that former President Donald Trump’s obsession with crowd size had a deeper meaning
Trump then launched the most bizarre attack of the 90-minute debate when he returned to the topic of immigration.
He followed the lead of his vice presidential candidate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, by falsely claiming that people’s pets were being eaten by Haitian immigrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio.
ABC News host David Muir then did a fact check.
“I just want to clarify here, you mentioned Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News reached out to the city manager there. He told us that there are no credible reports of specific claims of pets being abused, injured or mistreated by individuals.”
The former president’s MAGA allies accused ABC moderators of bias for fact-checking some of Trump’s statements throughout the evening.
When Muir claimed that the claims about eating pets were false, Trump responded.
“I’ve heard people on television saying my dog was taken,” the ex-president argued.
“A dog was eaten by the people,” Trump said.
Those few moments of the debate left the ex-president defending himself for the rest of the fight. A quick CNN poll even showed Harris as the clear winner.
Trump ally, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, said Tim Miller of The Bulwark that the staffers who had prepared the Republican for the debate should be fired, as evidenced by his lack of real preparation.