Trump tries out attack lines on Kamala Harris as her campaign heats up

Former President Donald Trump turned his ire on Vice President Harris in Charlotte, N.C., describing her as “a new victim to defeat.”

Trump repeatedly mispronounced Harris first name, Kamala, while describing her as more radical than Biden and “a danger to democracy.”

“Something happened to me when I got shot,” he said at a rally Wednesday night. “I became nice. And when you're dealing with these people, they're very dangerous people when you're dealing with them. You can't be too nice. You really can't be, so if you don't mind, I'm not going to be nice -- is that okay?”

The crowd roared. They chanted: “Fight. Fight. Fight,” a rallying cry that echoes through his events after a failed assassination attempt.

Harris has not shied away from her own attacks. In her first major speech as the likely nominee on Tuesday, Harris boasted of her background as a prosecutor and said that experience would come in handy against Trump.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said in Wisconsin. “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type.”

On Wednesday, Trump responded. He was anything but nice.

In very personal terms, he went on to call her “Lyin’ Kamala Harris” and "the most incompetent and far left vice president in American history.”

He told supporters she was “a radical, crazy person” on issues like gun rights and abortion.

“You've been terrible at everything you've done,” he said, as though speaking to her directly. “You're ultra liberal. And we don't want you here. We don't want you anywhere. Kamala. You're fired.”

It was Trump’s first rally since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race and only his second since the attempt on his life.

The visit also reflects the importance Trump is putting on North Carolina, a state he won twice. The margin was so narrow in 2020, though, that Democrats see an opportunity to win and have also campaigned heavily in the state.