WASHINGTON ― Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Republican candidate Donald Trump on Friday for labeling the United States as the “garbage can for the world,” claiming the former president is insulting the American people.

“This is just another instance of how he truly diminishes our nation,” Harris told journalists in Houston, where she was preparing for a campaign rally with music icon Beyoncé scheduled for later that evening.

“This individual was the president of our country, and he chooses to use his platform to declare to the world that somehow the United States is worthless?”

Trump first used this term during a campaign event in Tempe, Arizona, where he criticized the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. He has vowed to implement “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants if he wins a second term.

“When Kamala took office, she destroyed our border policy and opened the gates to an invasion of dangerous migrants from prisons and mental facilities around the world,” Trump stated.

“We’re serving as a dumping ground,” Trump continued. “We’re a trash can for the globe. That’s what’s happened. This is the first time I’ve ever expressed it this way.”

Harris emphasized that a president “should uplift the conversation and reflect our best qualities, investing in our values. Not someone like Donald Trump, who consistently demeans the American people. America deserves more than that.”

At another campaign event on Friday in Austin, Texas, Trump reiterated his comments, blaming the Biden administration for the rise in migration at the border, which has recently decreased following earlier increases this year.

“We’re like a trash can. We’re like a trash can,” Trump reiterated. “This was my first time saying it. I don’t know why, but it just popped out – garbage can. We’re like a receptacle for all those countries to offload the people they don’t desire.”