Vice President Kamala Harris responded to her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, calling her a “s*** vice president” over the weekend, saying he “demeans the office” of the presidency.
“And what you see in my opponent, a former president of the United States, really is – it demeans the office,” Harris told MSNBC’s Al Sharpton in an interview on Sunday. “And I have said, and I'm very clear about this, Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. He has not earned the right.”
Trump over the weekend lobbed insults at his Democratic opponent during a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, telling the crowd they need to tell Harris they “can’t take it anymore” and she is a “s*** vice president.”
In her response on Sunday on MSNBC, Harris also argued Trump’s comments are further proof that “the American people deserve so much better,” going on to speak about the importance of the commander in chief setting a standard for the nation and the rest of the world.
Harris was also asked about her support among Black men, a voting bloc that was thrust into the political spotlight after former President Barack Obama, while on the trail campaigning for the vice president, suggested some may be hesitant to vote for Harris because she is a woman. In the days after Obama’s comments, the vice president made stops at local Black-owned small businesses in battleground states, and sat for a town hall-style interview with Charlamagne tha God, whose radio show boasts a large Black audience.
Harris on Sunday contended that the “narrative” about Black men potentially waning in their support of her is “just not panning out in reality.” She also pushed back on the idea of the topic being discussed so frequently in political circles recently, saying she expects to “earn the vote of everyone, regardless of their race or gender.”
“What can be frustrating sometimes is to have journalists ask me this question, as though one should assume that I would just be able to take for granted the vote of Black men,” Harris told Sharpton. “I think that's actually an uninformed perspective, because why would Black men be any different than any other demographic voter?”
The vice president on Sunday also emphasized that she is “leaving nothing on the field” in the final stretch until Nov. 5, and said she hopes to be remembered in 50 years as having led a life that was about “fighting for the people.”
Harris on Sunday was also asked about the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week, with the vice president saying she believes it “removed an obstacle” to ending the war in Gaza.
She continued to walk a line on the war, which has become a flash point among some in the party upset with the Biden administration’s support of Israel, saying the “number of innocent Palestinians that have been killed in Gaza, it’s really unconscionable.” At the same time, she reiterated her commitment to defending “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
The topic could be particularly important in battleground Michigan, which has a large Arab-American population and where more than 100,000 voters cast a ballot for “uncommitted” instead of for President Joe Biden in the state’s Democratic primary election.