Trump’s First Major Ad Attacking Harris Hits Her on Immigration

Former President Donald J. Trump’s first television ad attacking his new rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, splices together footage of her dancing and images of migrants crossing the border as the ad accuses her of being a failed “border czar.”

The 30-second ad aims to hold Ms. Harris responsible for millions of border crossings and a quarter-million deaths from fentanyl, which the ad says occurred “on Harris’s watch.” It closes with a new Trump tagline for Ms. Harris: “Failed. Weak. Dangerously Liberal.”

The words flash on the screen as she dances, footage from an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.

It is the Trump campaign’s first major television ad purchase of the election since Ms. Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee. The campaign began making a two-week ad reservation on Monday, buying time in the six top battlegrounds.

The spending by state, according to data from AdImpact, the ad-tracking service, is $2.7 million in Pennsylvania, $2.3 million in Georgia, $2.3 million in Michigan, $1.9 million in Arizona, $1.8 million in Nevada and $1.3 million in Wisconsin.

The ad also makes use of an interview Ms. Harris did with NBC’s Lester Holt in 2021 when, as she was facing pressure from Republicans to visit the border, she said that she did not understand why her presence would be so important. “I haven’t been to Europe,” Ms. Harris said. “I mean, I don’t understand the point you’re making.”

The ad also mentions crimes committed by migrants and raises the specter of a potential terror attack. “ISIS now here,” the narrator states.

The Trump campaign had spent months laying the groundwork for a brutal general election campaign against President Biden — casting him as mentally diminished and weak — but his last-minute withdrawal two Sundays ago has upended the dynamics of the race.

Mr. Trump, 78, is now the oldest candidate and Ms. Harris, 59, can make the case that it is time to turn the page generationally.

But the Trump team still sees Ms. Harris as vulnerable on the two issues — inflation and immigration — that had underpinned its policy argument against Mr. Biden.

In speeches over the past week, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized Ms. Harris’s work as the “border czar,” a position she was never officially given but that refers to her being deputized by Mr. Biden to try to address the root issues causing people to flee countries in Central America. Ms. Harris was not charged with overseeing border security.

“Kamala Harris’s deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying for her to be president,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday at a rally in St. Cloud, Minn.

The ad reflects an effort by Mr. Trump and his team to make immigration central to his 2024 presidential campaign that predates Ms. Harris’s sudden ascension atop the ticket. As he has campaigned this year, Mr. Trump often laments not making the border and immigration, which helped fuel his political rise in 2016, central to his failed 2020 campaign.

Mr. Trump and his allies have also spent the time since Mr. Biden ended his campaign working to define Ms. Harris as ultraliberal, hoping to sway undecided moderate voters. In recent speeches, Mr. Trump has called Ms. Harris a “radical-left lunatic,” tried to tie her to progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and attacked her past support of left-wing positions on criminal justice.