Republican leaders urge colleagues to steer clear of racist and sexist attacks on Harris
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders warn party members against using openly racist and sexist attacks on vice president Kamala Harrislike her and the former president Donald Trump The campaign is trying to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before Election Day.
During a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, urged lawmakers to limit themselves to criticizing Harris for her role in the Biden-Harris administration’s policies.
“This election is about policy, not personalities,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
“This is not personal about Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender has absolutely nothing to do with this.”
The warnings highlight new risks for Republicans in running against a Democrat who would become the first woman, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to win the White House. Trump in particular has a history of racist and misogynist attacks that could turn off key pockets of swing voters, including suburban women as well as voters of color and the younger voters Trump’s campaign has courted.
The admonitions came after some Trump members and allies began portraying Harris, a former district attorney, attorney general and senator, as a “DEI” hire — a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“Intellectually, it’s just rock bottom,” said Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman. in a TV interview. “I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that’s what we’re seeing and I just don’t think they have anyone else.”
Since Biden announced he was withdrawing from the campaign, Republicans have have rolled out a long list of attack lines against Harrisincluding trying 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 a cover-up of Biden’s health problems, and they have scrutinized her record as a California prosecutor as they try to portray her as soft on crime.
Johnson said both Trump and Harris have a track record of White House policies and that voters can compare how families fared under the Trump administration with how they are doing now under Biden.
“She is a co-owner, co-author and co-conspirator of all the policies that have gotten us into this mess,” Johnson said.
Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race. In a memo on the state of the race Tuesday, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the fundamentals of the campaign had not changed as Harris increasingly appears the Democratic nominee.
“Democrats ditching one candidate for another does NOT change voter dissatisfaction with the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing prices, not to mention concerns about two foreign wars,” he wrote. “Just as importantly, voters should also learn about Harris’ dangerously liberal record before he becomes Biden’s partner.”
In a similar message, Hudson told members at Tuesday’s meeting that the NRCC is focused 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 the matter.
Senator Steve Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed that criticism, calling Harris “too liberal.”
“She’s not an Irish Catholic kid who grew up in Scranton. She’s a liberal from San Francisco,” Daines said.
Trump made a similar argument during a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“She is the same as Biden, but much more radical. She is a radical leftist and this country does not want a radical leftist to destroy it. She is much more radical than he is,” he said.
“So I think she should be easier than Biden, because he was a little more mainstream, but not much,” he added.
Trump later claimed in an interview with Newsmax that Harris had “ruined the city of San Francisco,” even though she had quit her job as a district attorney there in 2011, calling her “the worst at everything.”
“Kamala Harris is every bit as weak, failed, and incompetent as Joe Biden — and she’s also dangerously liberal,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Not only must Kamala defend her support for Joe Biden’s failed agenda over the past four years, she must also answer for her own appallingly poor crime record in California.”
Trump has a long history of particularly caustic and personal attacks on 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 what could come, Trump will be in a July 4th Post on his Truth Social network slammed Harris’ poor performance in the 2020 Democratic primaries, adding, “that doesn’t mean she’s not a ‘very talented’ politician! Just ask her mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco.” Harris dated Brown in the mid-’90s.
Strong, intelligent women attacking him seem to particularly grate on Trump, says Stephanie Grisham, a 2016 campaign aide who served as Trump’s White House spokesperson for a time before breaking with him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“She’s really going to get him all worked up,” Grisham predicted, noting that if Trump is attacked, he will “hit 1,000 times harder. He won’t be able to help himself.”
When it comes to women, she added: “His go-to is to attack appearance and call women stupid. That’s his go-to and I don’t expect this to be any different.”
Rep. Maxine Waters of California, a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of the first Democrats to confront Trump, said she is well prepared for what lies ahead as Republicans focus their campaign on Harris.
“The first thing I think about is the attacks coming from Trump, the MAGA right wing — they’ve already started,” Waters told the AP. “They’re going to be mean, they’re going to be bad.”
She predicted that this approach could backfire for Trump.
“The danger is that he will be so arrogant and selfish that he will trample on women and that will backfire,” she said.
The dynamics on the debate stage could increase if Trump goes ahead with the debate with Harris, as he announced Thursday.
According to Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, Trump is unlikely to debate Harris the same way he debated Biden, or the same way he debated another female rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in 2016.
“I don’t think Trump can approach a debate with Kamala Harris with the same tone that he approached the debate with Hillary Clinton. Kamala Harris doesn’t have the negatives that Hillary had and she’s a relatively new political face,” he said. “Some caution may be warranted.”
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Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price, Stephen Groves and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.