Trump says Kamala Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden
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US President Joe Biden had faced growing doubts about his chances after a weak performance in a televised debate against Mr Donald Trump.
PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on July 21 he thinks Vice-President Kamala Harris will be easier to defeat in November's election than Democratic President Joe Biden, who earlier in the day stepped aside as his party's candidate.
CNN said the Republican former president made the comments to the network shortly after Mr Biden announced his decision.
Mr Biden ended his reelection campaign on July 21 after fellow Democrats lost faith in his mental acuity and ability to beat Mr Trump. Mr Biden endorsed Ms Harris to replace him as the party's candidate.
Mr Biden had faced growing doubts about his reelection chances after a weak and faltering performance
On his Truth Social platform on July 21, Mr Trump said Mr Biden "was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve."
Other top Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, also said Mr Biden was not fit to serve as president and finish his term if he was stepping aside as the Democratic presidential candidate. Johnson explicitly called on Mr Biden to resign.
Mr Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, said: "We will suffer greatly because of his (Mr Biden's) presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly."
Mr Trump and Mr Biden had been mostly tied in polls, but after the debate some polls showed Mr Trump narrowly ahead of the president in a match-up for the November elections.
The Trump campaign had already begun discussions about how it would redeploy campaign resources for the possibility of Mr Biden's dropping out, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on July 21.
Given that any alternative Democratic candidate would likely have different strengths and weaknesses than Mr Biden, that person said, the president's dropping out would require rethinking where to spend ad dollars and where to deploy resources more generally.
Publicly, Trump campaign advisers and allies have been telling reporters they are not worried about facing Ms Harris because they can simply tie her to Mr Biden's record in office, particularly on immigration and inflation. They say they will try to portray Ms Harris, and any of the other candidates being suggested as alternatives for the Democrats, as being to the left of Mr Biden on various policies.
In a statement after Mr Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign said Ms Harris was Mr Biden's "enabler in chief." The campaign said Mr Biden and Ms Harris owned each other's records and "there is no distance between the two."
The official Republican National Committee YouTube channel published a two minute video on July 21 afternoon attacking Ms Harris over immigration policies, alleging she neglected that issue.
In recent weeks, Mr Trump's campaign and some of his allies have launched pre-emptive political attacks on Ms Harris to try to discredit her amid talk she could replace Mr Biden atop the party's 2024 presidential ticket.
In March 2021 Mr Biden said Ms Harris would lead efforts with Mexico and Central American nations to address illegal immigration.
Republicans have seized on that to accuse her of failing to stem the flow of millions of migrants crossing illegally into the United States, although she was never directly responsible for securing the southern border. REUTERS
