‘A liberal weak on crime’: Trump campaign hits back after Harris accuses him of ‘violent crime wave’

Trump’s campaign blasted Vice President Kamala Harris as a “liar” and “desperate” after her campaign aired a TV ad claiming former President Trump’s policies had caused a “wave of violent crime,” telling Fox News Digital that Harris was an “open-borders, weak-on-crime liberal.”

Harris’ campaign, just a day after the vice president accepted the Democratic nomination in Chicago, aired a crime-focused television ad. The ad claims that under Harris’ leadership, “violent crime has declined.”

“Her record as district attorney and attorney general: She arrested pedophiles, online predators and violent offenders and dismantled international drug cartels,” the ad reads. “Under Donald Trump? A wave of violent crime. And Trump ordered MAGA extremists to end the bipartisan border security deal.”

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

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Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, called Harris a “liar.”

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

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

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote that violent crime “is not down, it’s up nearly 25% in 66 major American cities while Kamala has presided over three of the four deadliest years in the last 25 years.”

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“Under Kamala, the illegal immigrants she allowed 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 its highest murder rate in a decade.”

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

“Drug cartels have not been ‘shut down,’ they have ravaged our communities with deadly drugs flowing across the border in unprecedented quantities,” the campaign continues. “The Sinaloa Cartel has made record profits under Kamala.”

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

Trump visited the border in Arizona on Thursday.

The Trump campaign has referred to American women such as Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, all of whom were allegedly killed by illegal immigrants.

Two Venezuelan nationals, Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 21, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, have been charged with capital murder in the death of 12-year-old Nungaray. The two men crossed illegally arrived in the United States earlier this year and are accused of strangling the preteen to death in June.

Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant, has been charged with the murder of Riley, 22. Ibarra entered the United States via El Paso, Texas, in 2022 and was paroled at the border. He first lived in New York, where he was arrested for allegedly endangering a child before moving to Athens, Georgia.

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

The Salvadoran national allegedly responsible for Morin’s death, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was also in the country illegally and, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was arrested by Border police three times within a few days in January 2023 and February 2023 and returned to Mexico under Title 42 each time.

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

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During his visit to Arizona on Thursday, Trump invited Angel Moms to share stories about victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

“We have made many trips to the border over the years and have told many stories of victims at the border, including the incredible Angel Moms,” Trump said. “Time does not heal all wounds, but we have never seen anything as severe and violent as what we are seeing in our country right now.”

“It’s an assault of violence.”

A Trump campaign official told Fox News Digital that the campaign’s strategy would be to “continue to focus on immigration and Kamala’s dereliction of duty at the border.”