At a rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Donald Trump rolled out a new attack on Vice President Kamala Harris that showcased his well-known fondness for high-toned discourse: Her handling of immigration reveals her as not just weak, but also dumb.

The former president luridly claimed that Venezuelan gang members were “plotting to conduct ambush attacks” on American cops, then added: “All the while Harris and Biden sit in the White House and try to figure out who is dumber.” He proceeded to blame “Border Czar Harris” for a series of crimes by migrants even though President Biden tasked her with addressing the root causes of Central American migration, while the Department of Homeland Security secures the border.

Unfortunately for Trump, unpublished DHS data shows that border encounters between ports of entry plummeted again to approximately 57,000 in July, according to an official familiar with the numbers. The data, which is preliminary until its official release in the coming days, was also leaked to CBS News and The New York Times. This is the fifth straight month of declining border crossings and the lowest monthly figure of the Biden administration. According to the Times, nine separate months during the Trump administration saw more border crossings than July under Biden did.

These numbers badly undermine Trump’s primary attack line on Harris—and not just in the most obvious way. It’s self-evident that declining migrant apprehensions counter Trump’s claim that the border is out of control due to alleged Biden-Harris weakness and stupidity. But it’s also important to dwell on why the numbers are falling, because this will demonstrate even more clearly that Trump’s ongoing attacks over........

© New Republic