In Erie, Donald Trump doubles down on suggesting Kamala Harris is ‘mentally impaired’

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested Vice President Kamala Harris is “mentally impaired” during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania Sunday, the second time in as many days he questioned his opponent’s mental capacity, despite facing widespread criticism for doing so.

“Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired, but lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way,” Trump said during an afternoon rally in Erie. “There’s something wrong with Kamala, and I just don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing.”

Trump later referred to the vice president as “a stupid person.”

During a rally in Wisconsin Saturday, the former president falsely said Harris was born “mentally impaired” and said her actions are that of a “mentally disabled person,” drawing swift criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.

Several top Republicans and some Trump allies distanced themselves this weekend from the comments and said they were unhelpful to the campaign.

“The better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said during an interview on CNN Sunday morning. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican running for Senate, said Trump’s comments were “insulting not only to the vice president, but to people who actually do have mental disabilities.”

Trump’s doubling down on that language came midway through two hours of remarks at a convention center on Lake Erie Sunday afternoon. He spent the majority of the speech talking about immigration — Pennsylvania voters favor him on the issue over Harris — saying he’s frustrated by the crisis at the southern border and acknowledging, “I’m a little bit rougher than I would normally be.”

The former president harshly criticized migrants, referring to people crossing the border as “rough, vicious, rougher than anything you can imagine” and saying his administration wouldn’t tolerate “migrant gangs and thugs.”

He added: “They’re coming into our cities and our small towns here in Pennsylvania and all over the country. These towns are petrified. Even if they’re not there yet, they will be there.”

» READ MORE: Trump’s messaging on immigration is littered with misinformation. But it’s taking hold in Pa.

Trump relied heavily on new data published by the Department of Homeland Security under President Joe Biden’s administration about criminal convictions of immigrants. He said Harris “let in 25,272 illegal aliens convicted of rape and other sex crimes,” and “let in 13,099 convicted murderers.”

But that’s a misrepresentation of the figures. The report was of aggregate data over decades and included immigrants who entered the country during previous administrations, including Trump’s.

Trump’s remarks came two days after Harris traveled to Arizona to deliver a speech near the U.S.-Mexico border, in which she called for stricter immigration enforcement and executive actions that would go further in restricting border crossings than the ones Biden signed this year.

During that speech, Harris also emphasized her support of a border protection bill that was drafted by a bipartisan group of senators but never came to a vote after Trump opposed it.

Trump hit back at Harris in Erie, saying of her support for stronger border protections, “Why didn’t she do it almost four years ago? Why didn’t she do it?”

Trump’s rally comes during a busy stretch of campaigning in Pennsylvania with five weeks until Nov. 5 and as mail voting is already underway across the battleground state.

On Saturday, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio), rallied in Newtown, Bucks County, a pivotal swing county. The campaign announced former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will campaign in Philadelphia for Trump Monday. And Trump is returning to Pennsylvania Saturday for a rally in Butler, where a gunman attempted to assassinate him two months ago.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Randi Weingarten, the head of the national teachers’ union, rallied with Harris campaign volunteers in Montgomery County on Sunday morning. Gov. Josh Shapiro joined writer and producer Shonda Rhimes in Plymouth Meeting Saturday. And Harris delivered a major speech on economics in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

Erie is itself a bellwether county that was twice won by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, but Trump took the county in 2016. Four years ago, it swung back to Democratic and delivered a majority of its votes to President Joe Biden.

Trump alluded to the county’s boomeranging leaning, saying: “Erie County was known as a Democrat area until Trump came along. And then they said ... ‘What the hell happened to Erie County?’”