Trump again distances himself from Project 2025 during visit to Arizona border

Earlier Thursday at the Arizona-Mexico border, Donald Trump defended himself against a series of attacks Democrats have lobbed at the former president during the Democratic National Convention.

That includes repeated accusations of ties to Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump term.

Democrats have criticized policies outlined in the document, from cutting off access to medication abortion to replacing tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants with political appointees.

“They've been told officially, legally, in every way, that we have nothing to do with Project 25,” Trump said. “They know it, but they bring it up anyway. They bring up every single thing that you can bring up. Every one of them was false.”

Trump himself repeated familiar attacks against Vice President Harris, blaming her for allowing violent criminals to cross the southern border illegally, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Trump attacked for stocking Minnesota public school bathrooms – including male-assigned bathrooms – with menstrual products.

But the former president spent the bulk of his time at the border focused on immigration. He was joined by family members of Americans killed by immigrants who’ve crossed the border illegally, and repeated his claim, without evidence, that many of those crossing the border were released from “mental institutions” and “insane asylums.”

"They make our criminals look like babies. They make our criminals look like babies,” Trump said. “That's about the only thing good. … Our criminals all of a sudden don't look so tough to us, right? These are the roughest people, and they're the roughest people from all over the world.”

Trump also made overtures to Black and Hispanic voters by claiming, without evidence, that immigrants are taking “the jobs of African Americans and Hispanics."

The sheriff of Cochise County and the head of the Border Patrol union also joined Trump.

“To my right is what we call Trump wall. This was wall that was built under President Trump,” said Paul Perez, the president of the Border Patrol union. “To my left, we have what we call Kamala wall. It's just sitting there doing nothing, lying down.”

Also joining Thursday’s border visit were the mothers of children who were killed during the Biden administration in cases where the suspects are immigrants in the country illegally. Trump frequently highlights attacks involving immigrants to fuel concerns about the Biden administration policies, though some studies have found that people living in the U.S. illegally are less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.

“I just really, really, really want everybody to please take into consideration how important border control is because we’re losing very innocent people to heinous crimes,” said Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was strangled to death in Houston in June.

At the Arizona event, snipers stood nearby at an elevated position, their eyes and weapons pointed toward Mexico, a day after Trump held his first outdoor rally since an assassination attempt last month. Security forces were also visible on the Mexican side of the border, including several men with rifles and tactical gear. Others wore uniforms identifying them as members of the Mexican state police.

In his tour of battleground states this week, Trump has traveled to Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina and will hold events in Las Vegas and Glendale on Friday. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, spoke at the same location near the border a few weeks ago.

DNC counter programming

The border stump speech is part of a week of counter programming by the Trump campaign as it tries to distract from Vice President Kamala Harris’ acceptance of the democratic presidential nomination.

Trump has sought to pin illegal border crossing under the Biden administration on Harris, and is expected to vow to finish the border wall after construction was halted under Biden.

Democrats have accused Trump of foiling a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year to use the border as a political football on the campaign trail.

Southern Arizona man sought for alleged threats against Trump as candidate visits border

A 66-year-old southern Arizona man is being sought for allegedly making death threats against Donald Trump on social media, authorities said Thursday, as the Republican former president and 2024 candidate was in the area to visit the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Cochise County Sheriff's Office identified the suspect as Ronald Lee Syrvud, 66, from the city of Benson. It's in the same county as the border area that Trump was visiting in the afternoon and that his running mate Sen. JD Vance went to in recent weeks.

“We are working closely with all local, state, and federal partners to locate this subject related to the outstanding warrants and the threats investigation,” the sheriff's office said in a statement.

The agency didn't describe the alleged threats.