politics
NEW YORK (AP) — This has been a Republican scaremongering tactic for years.
A vote for re-election President Joe BidenThe Republican Party often accuses it of being a vote for Vice President Kamala HarrisIt is a line of attack that sometimes has a touch of racist and misogynistic undertones and sometimes macabre imagery.
But after Biden’s miserable performance within the presidential debate last weekwhich has sparked Democratic calls for his resignation, what was once dismissed as a far-right conspiracy – Harris replacing Biden – may now have a likelihood of becoming a reality. And Republicans, including Donald Trumpintensify their attacks.
Trump and his allies have rolled out latest lines of attack against Harris, insulting her abilities, portraying her as Biden's top supporter and accusing her of involvement in covering up his health – an effort, campaign officials say, that doesn’t reflect their concerns a couple of potential change at the highest of the ticket as Biden insists he is just not dropping out of the race.
But in an Independence Day post on his website Truth Social on Thursday, Trump singled out Harris, calling her his “potential new Democratic challenger” and giving her a brand new derisive nickname: “Laffin' Kamala Harris.”
“She did poorly in the Democratic nomination process, starting out as a No. 2 seed and ultimately losing before she even reached Iowa. But that doesn't mean she isn't a 'highly talented' politician! Just ask her mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco,” he wrote. (Harris dated Brown within the mid-Nineties.)
The post got here after Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles released an announcement earlier this week using a special but similar nickname, referring to her as Biden's “giggling co-pilot Kamala Harris.”
Trump also released a profanity-laced video, first reported by the Daily Beast, by which he’s seen on the golf course calling Biden an “old, broken piece of crap” and declaring that he knocked the president out of the race. (Trump has repeatedly said in interviews that he didn’t expect Biden to be dismissed.)
“He's giving up the race,” Trump said. “And that means we have Kamala. I think she's going to be better. She's so bad. She's so pathetic,” he said.
Allies also joined within the attacks, portraying Harris as the highest defender of Biden's abilities and accusing her of lying to the American public.
Biden, the White House and his campaign insist he has no plans to drop out of the race. In an interview with ABC News that aired Friday night, he said only “the Lord Almighty” could knock him out of the race.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against the tone of the attacks against Harris, particularly Trump's decision to deal with a decades-old relationship and use other sexist rhetoric.
“I find that disgusting, I find that disturbing,” Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. “She should be respected in her role as vice president. She should be respected like every other vice president before her who has been in this room. It's appalling – I'll be careful here – that a former president would say something like that about a current vice president. And we should denounce that – that's not OK.”
It stays unclear how Harris would fare against Trump in comparison with Biden. Replacing a candidate so late in a presidential cycle – let alone an incumbent president who has already swept the Democratic Party primaries – can be unprecedented in modern history, and the mechanics are complicated and potentially messy.
Polls show Harris's approval rankings are just like those of Biden and Trump. A June AP-NORC poll found that about 4 in 10 Americans have a good opinion of her. However, the share who’ve an unfavorable opinion is barely lower than for Trump and Biden, and about 1 in 10 still has no opinion of her.
Harris, 59, can be a stark generational contrast to Trump, who’s 78 and in addition showing signs of age. As the primary woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to function vice chairman, she would even be a potentially groundbreaking candidate who could win support from women, minority voters and younger people – groups with whom Trump has tried to make significant inroads.
Harris has also been the Biden administration's leading voice on abortion rights, a key issue for Democrats because the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which could again boost voter turnout this fall.
Trump's campaign team, nonetheless, said it was confident in Trump's probabilities no matter his opponent, and rejected the concept Harris could pose a greater challenge to Trump, saying she is a more polarizing figure than the president.
“President Trump will beat every Democrat on November 5 because he has a proven track record and a goal to Make America Great Again,” LaCivita and Wiles said of their statement.
One campaign official said the deal with Harris was more a mirrored image of the present media deal with the Democratic nomination slate than a belief that she would ultimately replace Biden.
While the party has loads of research on the opposition because of Harris' 2020 campaign and her years as vice chairman, ultimately, they argue, Biden's record is Harris's record, and if she were to switch Biden, Trump's advisers wouldn’t be facing a wholly different race.
Harris, for instance, was tapped by Biden to guide the administration's response to the basis causes of the border crisis, which ties them to one among his weakest issues. And if he does indeed drop out, they argue, voters will now not give you the option to trust the administration, Harris and the press for not bringing Biden's weaknesses to light sooner.
“The economy is still the economy, the border is still the border, there are still global conflicts,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez. “And changing the person at the top of the ballot does not change those realities for the American voters.”
image credit : www.boston.com