Personal Attacks Key To Trump’s Approach To Kamala Harris, She Puts Focus On President’s Record

Though presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden considered nearly a dozen possible running mates, it was no great surprise that he chose California Sen. Kamala Harris for the No. 2 spot, making her the first Black woman and first Asian woman to headline a major political party ticket. After all, she made a good showing in the primary debates and has maintained a presence on the national stage since she replaced Barbara Boxer in the Senate.

So, it begs the question of why the Trump campaign took a scattershot approach in rolling out its attack, and conservative media mispronounced her name and complained about her voice, accusing her of being a radical leftist and not progressive enough at the same time. The best President Trump could come up with is calling her “nasty” and a “terrible choice.”

Donald Trump Jr. favorited a since-deleted tweet that described Harris as a “whorendous pick.”

At 55, Harris is a generation younger than both her running mate and the president, and a half-decade younger than Vice President Mike Pence.

She is a skilled prosecutor and put those skills on display as she questioned Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing last year. During the primary debates, she hammered Biden on his opposition in the 1970s to forced busing for school integration and his willingness to cut deals in Congress with avowed racists.

On Thursday during a Fox News interview, Trump called Harris “sort of a mad woman” because of her questioning of Kavanaugh.

Govtrack.us, an independent website that tracks federal legislation, lists Harris as the least conservative U.S. senator. Progressive Punch lists her as tied with Mazie Hirono of Hawaii as the third most liberal.

The Trump campaign repeatedly characterized Harris as phony on both its Team Trump and Trump War Room Twitter accounts for supporting universal healthcare, Green New Deal and gun control, and for opposing the death penalty. The feed also called her a “far-left radical” though she is considered a Democratic moderate and appeared outraged she would suggest Americans need a change in diet to be healthier.

“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received. Clearly phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democratic party,” the Trump-Pence campaign said in a press release.

A campaign fundraising letter Wednesday falsely accused Harris of wanting to seize people’s guns by force.

The main campaign account accused Biden and Harris of being weak on crime and wanting to see U.S. cities burn.

While the Trump approach is largely insult and personal-attack driven, Biden sought to make the election an referendum on the president’s handling of the coronavirus, the economy and his leadership skills.

At the Democratic ticket’s first joint appearance Wednesday in a mostly empty high school gym in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris compared Trump’s presidency to his bankruptcy-strewn business record, accusing him of squandering the strong economy he inherited from the Obama administration. Biden zeroed in on the twice-divorced Trump’s relationship with women.

“Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman or strong women across the board?”

Biden aimed Harris directly at Trump.

“We have all watched her in the United States Senate go toe-to-toe with Trump officials trying to hide the truth, asking the tough questions that needed to be asked and not stopping until she got an answer,” Biden said. “And when none was forthcoming, it was obvious what the answer was.”