Trump Talks Immigration, Biden At Arizona Campaign Stop

ARIZONA — President Donald Trump took aim at former Vice President Joe Biden during a Tuesday campaign stop in Yuma. Trump was in town to check on border wall construction and target Arizona voters ahead of the November election.

The president's Arizona visit came amid the 2020 Democratic National Convention, where Biden will accept his party's nomination. Earlier in the day, Trump held an event to pardon women's suffrage icon Susan B. Anthony on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. He also made a quick stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which was recently decimated by a derecho.

While immigration was on the schedule, the president took aim at Biden as he spoke at the Yuma International Airport.

“The Biden plan would unleash a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen," he told the crowd. “It’s crazy.”

He also went on to say that a Biden administration would mean a "giant jailbreak" for criminal gangs like MS-13. "My administration is the only thing standing between the American people and these deadly criminals,” he said.

The president also took time during his speech to praise Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey for his coronavirus response. Ducey met with the president at the White House earlier this month to discuss how the state was able to mitigate the spread of the virus.

"We had a spike and he knocked out that spike so fast," he said of Ducey. "Are you sure you even had a spike?" he asked.

To date, Arizona has counted 194,920 confirmed coronavirus cases and 4,529 known deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Trump also used the Yuma visit to check on construction at the southern border wall. Yuma is home to a large sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. The wall is currently being paid for using funds taken from military projects, including Fort Huachuca in Tucson, but the president said Mexico will be footing the bill — a key promise he made during the 2016 election.

“Mexico will be paying,” he said. “We’re figuring how much we have to charge.”

The president is set to visit Pennsylvania Thursday, the day Biden will accept the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency. Like Arizona, Pennsylvania is considered a swing state heading into November.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.