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

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Former President Trump is asked about officials searching for a man allegedly threatening his life.

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."

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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."

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"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."

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.

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.

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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."