WASHINGTON: Republican leaders are warning party members against using blatantly racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris as they and former President Donald Trump's campaign struggle to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before Election Day.
At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, RN.C., urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in the Biden-Harris administration's policies.
“This election will be about politics, not about personalities,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
“It's not personal about Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender has nothing to do with it.”
The warnings point to new risks for Republicans running against a Democrat who would become the first woman, the first black woman and the first person of South Asian decent to win the White House. Trump, in particular, has a history of racist and misogynistic attacks that could repel key groups of swing voters, including suburban women, as well as voters of color and younger people whom the Trump campaign courted.
The admonishment came after some members and Trump allies began casting Harris, a former district attorney, attorney general and senator, as a “DEI” hire — a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“Intellectually, it's really kind of bottom of the barrel,” Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman said in a televised interview. “I think she was hired by the DEI. And I think that's what we're seeing, and I just don't think they have anybody else.”
Since Biden announced he was leaving the campaign, Republicans have mounted a long list of attack lines against Harris, including attempts to tie her to Biden's most unpopular policies and his handling of the economy and the southern border. Trump campaign officials and other Republicans have accused Harris of complicity in covering up Biden's health problems and mined her record as a prosecutor in California in an effort to portray her as soft on crime.
Johnson said both Trump and Harris have track records in White House politics and said voters can compare how families fared under the Trump administration to how they are doing now under Biden.
“He is a co-owner, a co-author, a co-conspirator in all the policies that have thrown us into chaos,” Johnson said.
Biden announced on Sunday that he was withdrawing from the race. In a memo on the state of the race Tuesday, Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the fundamentals of the campaign have not changed now that Harris appears increasingly likely to be the Democratic nominee.
“Democrats deposing one candidate for another will NOT change voter dissatisfaction with the economy, inflation, crime, open border, housing costs, not to mention fears of two foreign wars,” he wrote. “Importantly, voters will also learn about Harris' dangerously liberal history before becoming Biden's running mate.”
In a related report, Hudson told members at Tuesday's meeting that the NRCC is focusing on how Harris is even more progressive than Biden and essentially “owns” all of the administration's policies, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it.
Senator Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senate Committee, echoed the criticism, calling Harris “too liberal.”
“He's not an Irish Catholic kid who grew up in Scranton. She’s a San Francisco liberal,” Daines said.
Trump offered a similar argument in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“She's the same as Biden, but much more radical.” It is the radical left and this country does not want to be destroyed by the radical left. He is much more radical than him,” he said.
“So I think she should be easier than Biden because he was a little more mainstream, but not much,” he added.
Later, in an interview with Newsmax, Trump claimed that Harris “destroyed the city of San Francisco”, although she left her job as district attorney in 2011, calling it “the worst of all”.
“Kamala Harris is as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden — and she's also dangerously liberal,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Not only does Kamala have to defend her support of Joe Biden's failed agenda for the past four years, but she also has to answer for her own horribly low crime rate in California.”
Trump has a long history of particularly scathing and personal attacks against women, from former Fox News host Megyn Kelly to his 2016 primary opponent Carly Fiorina to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully sued him and his company for fraud.
In a sign of things to come, Trump took a jab at Harris' poor performance in the 2020 Democratic primary in a Fourth of July message on his Truth social network, adding, “That doesn't mean she's not a 'highly talented' politician! Just ask her mentor, San Francisco's Big Willie Brown. Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s.
Strong, intelligent women who attack him seem to especially get under Trump's skin, said Stephanie Grisham, a 2016 campaign aide who served as Trump's White House press secretary for a time before parting ways with him after the attack on 6 Jan 2021. US Capitol.
“He's going to get a real rise out of him,” Grisham predicted, noting that when Trump is attacked, “he hits 1,000 times harder.” He can't help himself.”
As for women, she added: “His goal is to attack looks and call women stupid. It's his goal and I don't expect it to be any different.”
Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who is a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus and was among the first Democrats to stand up to Trump, said she is well prepared for what lies ahead as Republicans pivot their campaign toward Harris.
“The first thing I'm thinking about is the attacks that are going to come from Trump, the right wing of MAGA — which has already started,” Waters told the AP. “They're going to be ugly, they're going to be mean.”
She predicted that approach could backfire on Trump.
“The danger is that he's so arrogant and egotistical that he'll step on women and it backfires,” she said.
The momentum could increase on the debate stage if Trump goes through with the Harris debate, as he said Thursday he would.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said Trump was unlikely to debate Harris the same way he debated Biden — or the same way he debated another challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in 2016.
“I don't think Trump can approach a debate against Kamala Harris with the same tone that he approached a debate with Hillary Clinton. Kamala Harris doesn't have the negatives of Hillary and is a relatively new political face,” he said. “Caution may be in order.
