Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign has mocked Donald Trump for appearing to suggest he was still running against President Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, during a town hall event with Fox News host Sean Hannity, the Republican presidential candidate said he couldn’t imagine people in New Hampshire voting for Biden, who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on July 21 and endorsed Harris.
“I can’t imagine New Hampshire voting for him—anybody in New Hampshire, ’cause they’re watching right now. But anybody in New Hampshire that votes for Biden and Kamala, I really think,” Trump said, as seen in a 13-second clip posted on X, formerly Twitter, by @KamalaHQ, Harris’ campaign account.
“Trump repeatedly forgets who he is running against,” the campaign wrote in the caption of the video, which has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
Trump repeatedly forgets who he is running against: “I can’t imagine New Hampshire voting for him… Anybody in New Hampshire who votes for Biden…” pic.twitter.com/qAv6IFs9Q1
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 5, 2024
The X account @KamalaHQLies, which comments on most of @KamalaHQ’s posts to accuse the campaign of spreading misinformation, said the clip was taken out of context.
“THE LIE: Trump forgot who he is running against. THE TRUTH: Trump was talking about who he was running against (Biden) before Democrats staged a coup and replaced him with Kamala,” the account wrote.
“Kamala HQ is purposely lying to their followers. Trump was recalling how he didn’t think Biden would be able to win New Hampshire,” it added.
The account posted a longer clip from the town hall to show the context around Trump’s reference to Biden running in New Hampshire.
Newsweek has contacted the campaigns of Harris and Trump for comment.
In the longer video, Trump described Harris’ path to becoming the 2024 Democratic candidate as a coup, citing her poor results in the 2020 Democratic primary.
“And it was really a coup when you think about it. And the woman who came in—the person that came in last. I mean, she came in last. She was the first one out out of all those people. You had many people that did pretty well. It was actually close at the end,” Trump said.
The former president then mentioned South Carolina, saying Biden had treated New Hampshire badly. In 2020, Biden, who placed fifth in New Hampshire’s primary, skipped his campaign party in the state and headed to South Carolina.
Mandel Ngan/Getty Images
“And then in South Carolina—and by the way, New Hampshire was so badly treated by the Democrat Party and by Joe Biden and her, I can’t imagine New Hampshire voting for him,” Trump said.
This is when the former president appeared to mention running against Biden. “Anybody in New Hampshire, ’cause they’re watching right now. But anybody in New Hampshire that votes for Biden and Kamala, I really think—I call her Comrade Kamala because that’s what her ideology is,” he said.
Trump then discussed the Democratic Party changing its primary order. New Hampshire previously held the first Democratic primary in an election cycle, with the Iowa caucus being the first nominating contest. However, in 2023, the party voted to change the order, allowing South Carolina to go first.
The move enraged some New Hampshire Democrats, who argued that the Granite State should retain its “first in the nation” primary status. Amid the controversy, Biden declined to appear on the state’s ballot but went on to win the primary through write-ins.
In Wednesday’s town hall event, it was unclear whether Trump credited the order change to Harris or Biden, as he attributed it first to “she” and then to “he.”
“You know that she did something after decades and decades and decades. It was Iowa—the first two: Iowa, New Hampshire. And that’s the way he thought people thought it was going to be,” Trump said. “He didn’t want to go to New Hampshire. He didn’t want to play the New Hampshire game.”
Trump then questioned once more whether voters in New Hampshire would support Biden, who is not running. He does not mention Harris, who is.
“He dumped New Hampshire, and I said to people today, ‘Who the hell from New Hampshire would vote for this guy?'” Trump said. “He changed the whole primary system. He changed the whole system because he took them out of the order. I think it’s gonna have a big effect. We really want to win New Hampshire. I’ve done well there, and we really want to win New Hampshire.”
According to the latest polling, Trump trails Harris by 7 points in New Hampshire, and his campaign recently fired a volunteer who said it was “no longer a battleground state.”
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