Vice President Kamala Harris framed her likely upcoming fight against Donald Trump as one between a prosecutor and a criminal — describing, from her new campaign headquarters Monday, her experience taking on “predators,” “fraudsters” and “cheaters.”
Trump around the same time, meanwhile, took to Truth Social to call Harris “Dumb as a Rock.”
The comments, both made as Trump and Harris began preparing to take on each other after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, provided a glimpse into the two candidates’ expected lines of attack.
Trump, who during a rally in Michigan Saturday night called Harris “crazy,” “nuts,” and “Laughing Kamala,” is likely to turn to ad hominem attacks against her, while Harris is expected to lean into her experience as a prosecutor — and Trump’s status as a felon with wide-ranging legal problems.
Trump on Monday fired off a post expressing that he was bothered by the television news coverage he saw of Harris and Biden.
“Wow, just watching the Fake News, and they’re doing their very best to turn the Worst President in the History of our Country into a ‘Brilliant and Heroic Leader’ (He was heroic because he quit!), and to turn “Dumb as a Rock” Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future “Great” President,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “No, it just doesn’t work that way!”
Trump’s insults of his opponent’s intelligence aren’t limited to Harris. At the rally Saturday, Trump used the word “stupid” no fewer than 13 times, more than half of which were in reference to Biden, who he also repeatedly called “low IQ.” During the Republican primary, Trump nicknamed Nikki Haley “Birdbrain.”
Trump has long deployed sexist remarks against women standing in his way, particularly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. At the time, he didn’t just attack Hillary Clinton, the first female nominee of a major political party, but others like Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and conservative journalist Megyn Kelly.
During his campaign against Clinton, Trump made fun of her for “shouting,” accused her of only having “the woman card” to play, of not having “the look” to be president, and notably, of being a “nasty woman.” More recently, Trump has launched personal attacks against Black Democratic women like New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
His comments about women — often brought up by critics discussing his unpresidential “rhetoric” — have previously cost him support with suburban and college educated voters, despite his 2016 Electoral College win. A redeployment of similar verbal assaults against Harris could spell Trump new problems in an election that, for months, he has led solidly.
While Trump has been trying out new nicknames and attack lines against Harris, his campaign and allies, meanwhile, have sought to tie Harris to unpopular Biden policies, chiefly the southern border.
“Same year — same people — same record of failure — same result,” Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote of Harris in a “State of Play Day 1” memo Monday night, calling her “Border Czar Kamala Harris.”
Speaking to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware on Monday, Harris distilled her case against Trump.
“I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris said. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Harris continued by saying Trump “wants to take our country backwards, to a time before many of our fellow American had full freedoms and rights.”
