In the roughly two weeks since President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his spot at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump has increasingly gone after his new opponent’s race and gender.
Harris, whose mother was Indian and father is Jamaican, would make history if she is elected president. She’d be both the first female president and the first Asian American president.
Trump no longer has another older white man to run against. At 59, Harris is roughly 20 years younger than Trump and has already been trying to reach the younger voters, and voters of color, who were unenthusiastic about Biden.
It’s a demographic Trump has also been trying to chip away at. His response to running against Harris has been to lash out with gender- and race-centered attacks — attempts to undermine her credibility with some of those groups — while questioning whether she’s qualified to be president and reinforcing his base.
The strategy, however, risks alienating voters who may believe the attacks go too far.
The Trump and Harris campaigns didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Here’s a look at some of the attacks Trump has lobbed at Harris since she took over as the Democratic presidential candidate:
Trump baselessly claims Harris ‘became Black’ for political gain
Trump questioned Harris’ racial identity Wednesday during a panel discussion at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference in Chicago.
He suggested that Harris was Indian American until she “became Black” for political gain.
Trump said he had known Harris “a long time, indirectly,” and claimed that “she was only promoting Indian heritage.”
“I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” he said, adding, “All of a sudden, she made a turn and … she became Black.”
“Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked.
Harris is biracial. She is both Indian and Black.
After the NABJ appearance, Trump posted on social media, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!”
And Thursday, Trump again went after Harris’ racial identity, writing on social media about her “love” of her “Indian Heritage” and posting an image of her with her mother’s side of her family.
Harris attended Howard University, a historically Black college, and she was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the country’s first historically Black sorority.
‘Weak’
In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham this week, Trump said that if Harris is elected, foreign leaders will treat her “like a play toy.”
Trump made it clear that his assessment was based on her appearance.
“They look at her and they say we can’t believe we got so lucky,” he said. “They’re going to walk all over her.”
“I don’t want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it,” he added.
Female politicians have long been questioned about their strength and whether they look the part of a leader. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the same criticisms when she ran against Trump in 2016.
“I think that my words represent toughness and strength. Hillary’s not strong. Hillary’s weak, frankly. She’s got no stamina; she’s got nothing,” Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” at the time.
Trump also said during that election cycle that he didn’t believe Clinton had “the look” to be president.
‘Dumb as a rock’
The day after Biden threw his support behind Harris, Trump put up a social media post calling her “Dumb as a Rock.”
On Saturday, at a bitcoin conference in Tennessee, he further said, “I’m running against a low-IQ individual.”
Trump often throws insults at his opponents, whether they’re male or female. But his criticisms of women and people of color frequently echo attacks that nonwhite men have traditionally faced in politics.
Trump, for example, called one of his primary opponents, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, “birdbrain.”
Trump pushes baseless birther claims
On Thursday, Trump shared a post by far right-activist Laura Loomer that said Harris is “NOT black and never has been.”
“Nowhere on her birth certificate does it say that she is BLACK OR AFRICAN,” Loomer wrote, adding that Harris is descended from slave owners as supposed further proof that she isn’t Black.
It’s a well-known historical fact, however, that slave owners would sometimes father children with women they held as slaves.
Harris’ parents both immigrated to the U.S., and she was born in California.
In 2020, Trump promoted a baseless birther conspiracy claiming Harris wasn’t eligible to be president.
Trump has also pushed birther conspiracy theories about Haley, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former President Barack Obama.
Trump and other Republicans also frequently mispronounce Harris’ first name. Notably, he never had trouble pronouncing “Joe Biden.”
‘Crazy’
Trump has repeatedly called Harris “crazy.”
“She’s a radical, crazy person,” he said at a recent rally.
Women have long faced questions about their mental fitness and their ability to regulate their emotions when they’re running for office. And it was, again, an accusation Trump leveled at Clinton when he ran against her in 2016.
“Unstable Hillary Clinton lacks the judgment, temperament and moral character to lead this country — and I believe that so strongly,” Trump said at the time. “She’s really pretty close to unhinged, and you’ve seen, you’ve seen it a couple times. The people in the background know it, the people who know her know it, and she’s like an unbalanced person.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
