Donald Trump called Kamala Harris “a bum” and joked about mispronouncing her name during a speech in Florida Friday night.
Trump is one of several Republicans who have deliberately mispronounced Vice President Kamala Harris’ name, angering some liberals.
The former president joked about it at an event in West Palm Beach for Turning Point.
He began talking about the vice president, calling him “worse than Joe Biden and in fact much more liberal,” before noting that he had pronounced her name correctly.
“And by the way, there’s a million ways to pronounce her name, they explained it to me, you can say Kamala, you can say Kamala, I said, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter what I say. I don’t care if I pronounce it wrong,” Trump said.
Donald Trump called Kamala Harris ‘a bum’ and joked about mispronouncing her name during a speech in Florida Friday night
Trump was generally scathing about Harris and seemed shocked that liberals were suddenly supporting her, given her record.
‘She was a bum 3 weeks ago, she was a bum. A failed VP, in a failed administration, with millions of people crossing the border and she was the Border Czar.’
He also criticized her for skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, saying she did not like Jewish people.
“She refused to attend the speech. Because that’s her original thought, that’s where she comes from. She doesn’t like Jewish people, she doesn’t like Israel.”
Vice President Harris’ husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, and Harris met one-on-one with Netanyahu on Friday. Harris is also stepmother to Emhoff’s two children with his first wife, who are also Jewish.
Harris became the presumptive presidential nominee earlier this week when Joe Biden announced he would not seek a second term.
The proper pronunciation of Harris’ name has been a hotly debated topic since she was named Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020.
Instead of the correct “KA’-ma-la,” Trump sometimes says “Ka-MAH-la.”
The discourse surrounding the Harris name has been well documented, with the Washington Post running an article last week about all the people who got it wrong at the RNC.
Trump was generally scathing about Harris and appeared shocked at the liberals’ sudden turn in her favor, given her record.
Harris, who is of Native American and Jamaican descent, is the first woman to become vice president and the third non-white person to become president or vice president, following Obama and Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover’s vice president who had Native American ancestry.
The discourse surrounding the Harris name is well-documented. Last week, the Washington Post ran an article about all the people who got the name wrong at the RNC.
They joined the likes of Tucker Carlson, who lost his temper after being challenged on his statement in 2020.
Trump has also mispronounced the name in the past or made a show of pronouncing it in a seemingly mocking manner.
Critics say the mispronunciation is a deliberate tactic to draw attention to Harris’ heritage as a Black and Indian woman.
Harris herself has addressed the situation, releasing a video in 2016 that uses children to educate people.
“People pronounce my name in many different ways. Let #KidsForKamala show you how,” she said.
And in his 2019 memoir, Harris wrote: “[M]y name is pronounced ‘comma-la’, as is the punctuation mark. It means ‘lotus flower’, which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture.’
But even Biden has struggled in the past, trashing his vice president’s name during a 2019 speech honoring the Golden State Warriors for winning the NBA championship.