Kamala Harris more incompetent than Biden, Trump tells Elon Musk
Washington (PTI): Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a “third-rate phoney candidate” and “more incompetent” than her boss President Joe Biden, her Republican rival in the November election, Donald Trump, has said.
In a much-anticipated audio-only interview with billionaire tech magnate Elon Musk on Monday on his social media platform X which was delayed by more than 40 minutes due to technical difficulties, the 78-year-old former president said, “She is a radical left lunatic," as he alleged that “she wants to be more Trump than Trump”.
Launching a scathing attack on the 59-year-old US Vice President, Trump described Harris as a “third-rate phoney candidate.” He reiterated his allegation that Biden being replaced by Harris as a presidential candidate of the Democratic party was a coup.
Musk agreed with the former president and said, "Her behaviour is far left.”
"She (Harris) had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won't do anything. It's all talk," Trump said.
"She's incompetent, and he (Biden) is incompetent. And frankly, I think that she's more incompetent than he is, and that's saying something because he's not too good," he said.
Trump would face Harris in the general elections on November 5.
He accused Harris of having failed miserably on border security as hundreds and thousands of people entered the country illegally.
Asserting that he is in favour of legal immigration, Trump said it is illegal immigration that he is against.
“She is such a liar,” Trump alleged on X, previously known as Twitter, on the day when he returned to the social media platform.
Over a million people listened to the much-awaited audio-only conversation, which started more than 40 minutes late because of technical issues.
“There appears to be a massive DDOS ( distributed denial-of-service) attack on X. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later,” Musk said in a post on X.
During the interview, both Musk and Trump agreed that the crime rate has increased in the US because of the open border policy of the Biden-Harris Administration.
“We're gonna have the largest deportation in the history of this country. And we have no choice,” said the former president.
Responding to a question from Musk, Trump also slammed Biden's foreign policy and applauded Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I got along well with them,” he said, claiming there would have been no war if he was the president of the United States.
Meanwhile, Musk stressed that people respond to strength and not weakness and said, “We have some really bad people… we have some really bad people, and I say they are more dangerous than Russia and China.”
The biggest threat, he said, is not climate change but nuclear warming.
The conversation between Trump and Musk started with the failed assassination attempt on the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
“It's very much, I say, an act of God. It's a miracle that it happened,” Trump said.
Commenting on the country's economy, he said the US is having the worst inflation in 100 years. Trump accused the Biden-Harris administration of the worsening of the US economy.
“We need to reduce our government spending. … We need, like a government efficiency commission,” Musk said.
Trump also told Musk, the 53-year-old CEO of Tesla, that he was an “interesting character”.
During the conversation, Trump described China as a primary competitor in Artificial Intelligence and announced that he would close down the Department of Education and move them to the states. In this, he said he would need Musk's help.
Trump, who has 88.8 million followers on X, had 10 posts on the social media platform, each of which has been viewed millions of times.
Some of his posts had 34 million impressions.
His first post, “Are you better off now than you were when I was president? Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!” had 25 million impressions.
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Delhi CM Rekha Gupta accuses Mamata Banerjee of stalling SIR; TMC hits back
Kolkata (PTI): Alleging that her West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee had approached the Supreme Court to stall the SIR exercise to prevent the identification of infiltrators, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Sunday claimed that the people of the state have made up their minds to dislodge the Trinamool Congress from power.
The TMC countered strongly, urging Gupta to "look into her own backyard" and accused her of making absurd allegations against the TMC government without checking facts.
Addressing participants at the 'Nari Sankalp Yatra' organised by the BJP's women's wing at Science City auditorium here, Gupta alleged that the "hands-off" and appeasement policies of the TMC government had allowed thousands of infiltrators to enter the state in recent years.
She claimed that this had put a strain on basic rights such as access to water, electricity, ration, education, livelihood and the right to vote for genuine citizens.
"She wants to perpetuate this and hence is trying to stall the SIR exercise, which aims at identifying and deporting infiltrators. Imagine a chief minister going to the apex court to argue against an exercise meant to ensure free and fair polls," Gupta said.
The BJP leader alleged that appeasement politics had reached an "alarming level" under the TMC regime.
Raising concerns over women's safety, she claimed that women in the state were not secure despite having a woman chief minister.
Referring to the rape-murder of a woman doctor at RG Kar Hospital, Gupta alleged that the state government had failed to respond adequately to such crimes.
She also referred to the alleged rape of a woman medic in Durgapur and another law student on a Kolkata college campus, claiming that criminals had been emboldened to commit brutalities against women.
She alleged that in crimes against women, overall crime incidents and child marriages, West Bengal remained among the top -- "a slur on a state which once led intellectual and social movements and set examples for the rest of the country," she said.
Criticising the state government's welfare initiatives, she said schemes such as Kanyashree were built on "false claims" and asserted that women needed security rather than assurances.
Accusing the state government of blocking central schemes, Gupta alleged that funds worth "lakhs of crores of rupees" had not reached the poor due to non-implementation of programmes such as Ayushman Bharat, PM Awas Yojana and Jal Jeevan Mission by the state.
"You are only interested in renaming projects and taking credit," she said.
Gupta also alleged that the education sector in the state had been adversely affected, saying several state-run schools had closed due to a shortage of teachers and that the government was opposed to the National Education Policy.
Drawing a comparison with BJP-ruled Delhi, Gupta said, "People have already voted out 'Bhaia' (a reference to former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal). Now it is your turn to bid farewell to 'Didi'." Calling upon women to resist what she termed "strong-arm tactics", she urged them to assert their strength, invoking the imagery of Goddess Durga.
"Bengal has the right to live with dignity, and women have the right to live with dignity," she added.
Reacting to Gupta's allegations, West Bengal Women and Child Welfare minister Shashi Panja accused her of making "absurd allegations" against the Trinamool Congress government ahead of elections.
Panja alleged that during Gupta's tenure in Delhi, several incidents had raised serious concerns, including reports of missing young women and a blast near the Red Fort.
She also criticised the air pollution situation in the national capital, claiming that people were struggling to breathe.
The TMC leader said that despite being in power for a year, Gupta was making "tall claims" instead of addressing key issues in Delhi.
Panja further alleged that the Delhi CM visited West Bengal during elections to "peddle false allegations" against the state government.
Rebutting Gupta, the TMC said in a post on X said, "Madam why did you go off-script again? For your edification, here are the cold, hard facts: In total cases of crimes (IPC + SLL), Bengal ranks a respectable 15th, far safer than BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, which languish near the bottom."
"In overall crime rate, Bengal sits comfortably at 28th. Who's second? Your own Delhi. Double Engine Gujarat and Haryana grab 4th and 5th as top-tier crime havens," the TMC said.
"In child marriage, Assam again takes the shameful pole position. And yet you dare lecture Bengal? Stop embarrassing yourself, stop the hypocrisy, and maybe fix the rotting mess in your own backyard before pointing fingers at a state that's outperforming your disasters on every key metric," the TMC countered.
