NEW YORK (AP) — It’s been a Republican scare tactic for years.
The Republican Party often accuses a vote for Joe Biden’s re-election of wanting to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. This line of conduct is sometimes tinged with racist and misogynistic connotations and often with macabre imagery.
But after Biden’s disappointing performance in last week’s presidential debate, which prompted calls from Democrats to step down, what was once seen as a far-right conspiracy — Harris replacing Biden — may now have a chance of coming true. And Republicans, including Donald Trump, are stepping up their attacks.
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Trump and his allies have launched new attacks on Harris, insulting her abilities, portraying her as Biden’s chief accomplice and accusing her of participating in a health cover-up. It’s an attempt, campaign officials insist, that doesn’t reflect their concerns about a potential change at the top of the ticket, given Biden’s insistence that he won’t quit the race.
But in an Independence Day post on his Truth Social website Thursday, Trump took aim at Harris, calling her a “potential new Democratic challenger” and giving her a mocking new nickname: “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.”
“She had a bad run in the Democratic nomination process, starting at number two, and eventually getting defeated and dropping out, before she even got to Iowa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a ‘very talented’ politician! Just ask her mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco,” he wrote. (Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s.)
The post comes after senior Trump campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles released a statement earlier this week that proposed a different, but similar, nickname, calling her Biden’s “cackling co-pilot Kamala Harris.”
Trump also released an insult-filled video, first reported by the Daily Beast, in which he was filmed on a golf course calling Biden an “old piece of shit” and saying he had pushed the president out of the race. (Trump has repeatedly said in interviews that he did not expect Biden to be ousted.)
“He’s dropping out of the race,” Trump said. “And that means we have Kamala. I think she’s going to get better. She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic,” he said.
Allies also joined in the attacks, painting Harris as Biden’s primary advocate for academics and accusing her of lying to the American public.
Biden, the White House and his campaign insist he has no intention of dropping out of the race. In an ABC News interview that aired Friday night, he said only “the Lord Almighty” would stop him from running.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back on the tenor of the attacks on Harris, particularly Trump’s decision to invoke a decades-old relationship and other sexist rhetoric.
“I think it’s disgusting, I think it’s disturbing,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One. “She should be respected in her role as vice president. She should be respected like any other vice president before her who was in this room. It’s appalling, I’m going to be careful here, for a former president to say that about a current vice president. And we should denounce it, it’s not acceptable.”
It’s not yet clear how Harris would fare against Trump, compared to Biden. Replacing a candidate this late in a presidential cycle — let alone an incumbent who has already won the Democratic primary — would be a first in modern history, and the mechanics are complex and potentially messy.
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Polls show Harris’ approval ratings are similar to those of Biden and Trump. An AP-NORC poll in June found that about 4 in 10 Americans had a favorable view of her. But the share of those with an unfavorable view is slightly lower than that of Trump and Biden, and about 1 in 10 have no opinion of her yet.
At 59, Harris would be a sharp generational contrast to Trump, who is 78 and also showing signs of aging. As the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president, she could also chart a candidacy that could shake things up and attract support from women, minority voters and young people — groups with whom Trump is trying to make significant inroads.
Harris has also been the Biden administration’s leading voice on abortion rights, an issue that has animated Democrats since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and could drive turnout again this fall.
The Trump campaign, however, said it was confident in Trump’s chances regardless of his opponent, and dismissed the idea that Harris could pose a greater challenge to Trump, viewing her as a more polarizing figure than the president.
“President Trump will beat any Democrat on November 5 because he has a proven track record and a goal to make America great again,” LaCivita and Wiles said in their statement.
One campaign official suggested that the focus on Harris reflects the current media focus on the Democratic ticket more than a belief that she will ultimately replace Biden.
While the party has plenty of opposition research on Harris from her 2020 campaign and years as vice president, ultimately, they argue, Biden’s record is Harris’s record, and if she were to replace Biden, Trump aides would not face a vastly different race.
Harris, for example, was chosen by Biden to lead the administration’s response to the causes of the border crisis, tying her to one of its biggest weaknesses. And if he steps down, they argue, voters will have a hard time trusting the administration, Harris and the press for not shedding light on Biden’s weaknesses sooner.
“The economy is the economy, the border is the border, there are still global conflicts,” said Danielle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign. “And changing who is at the top of the poll doesn’t change the reality for American voters.”
Associated Press journalists Linley Sanders and Josh Boak contributed to this report from Washington.
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