Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump entered a new phase of the presidential race the morning after an Oval Office speech in which President Biden retreated, each again taking aim at the other as they race toward November.
During a Thursday morning conversation on the Republican-leaning “Fox and Friends,” Trump called Harris a worse candidate than Biden and a “San Francisco radical” who would take the country to a new low if elected.
“She is probably the most radical person we have ever had in office,” Trump said, “let alone in the office of the presidency.”
Harris, in a speech to the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, cast voters as choosing between going backward or forward and Trump's agenda as dangerous, even for unionized workers like those who came before her.
“We are fighting for the future,” he said. “In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get ahead, but to get ahead.”
Harris also released her first campaign ad, which featured an equally edgy tone, and received a boost from Beyoncé, who gave Harris' campaign permission to use her song “Freedom,” according to CNN.
This combination of photos shows Beyoncé, left, at the iHeartRadio Music Awards in Los Angeles on April 1 and Vice President Kamala Harris speaking from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Monday.
(Associated Press)
“In this election, each of us faces one question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris says at the beginning of the ad.
“There are people who think we should be a country of chaos, of fear, of hate,” he says, over a picture of Trump. “But us? We chose something different. We chose freedom.”
Comments from both candidates on Thursday expanded on themes they had already touched on in recent days, as Harris made quick work of shoring up support to officially become the Democratic presidential nominee.
But Harris and Trump also sought to counter new lines of attack from the other side, as well as old ones that resurfaced from the past. Across the country, representatives and supporters of each candidate sought to do the same.
In a resurfaced video, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, called Harris and other Democratic leaders “childless cat ladies” who “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country’s future because they don’t have children.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) speaks during a rally in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, on Monday.
(Paul Vernon/Associated Press)
Women across the internet reacted angrily. Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, also defended Harris, pointing out that Harris has co-parented her and the second gentleman's two children.
“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has co-parented with Doug and me,” Kerstin Emhoff said. “She is loving, protective and always there. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
The tone Thursday was more ordinary than in previous days of a presidential contest, but such is the impact of the radical shift in the race caused by Biden's late exit.
Trump and his campaign were recalibrating their message to better and more specifically attack Harris. Harris and her campaign were seeing a surge of renewed enthusiasm and were trying to take advantage of it. Both campaigns were trying out new ideas to see what might work best, what would resonate with their base, what would generate cheers at rallies and generate likes and engagement on social media.
On “Fox and Friends,” Trump derided Biden’s Wednesday night speech as “terrible” and said Biden “seemed to be struggling.”
While some Republican leaders have said Biden, 81, should resign because he cannot fulfill his duties, Trump said he did not believe Biden should be removed from office because the election is “not far away” and because “if he leaves, she will take over, and she is worse than him.”
In recent days, Harris and her supporters have highlighted her experience as a prosecutor, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general. On Thursday, Trump suggested, without evidence, that Harris somehow had a hand in the various criminal cases against him.
“They have used the judicial system as a weapon against me,” Trump said. “They force all these cases on me, they are the ones who start them, and then they say, 'I'm a prosecutor, he's a criminal.' They are the ones who start all the cases.”
Trump has been charged with multiple crimes for allegedly taking classified documents home after leaving the White House and then trying to cover it up, and encouraging his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Those cases were led by a special counsel.
Separately, he was convicted on 34 felony counts — in a case brought by New York prosecutors — of falsifying business records to conceal the payment of money to a porn actress who alleged she had an affair with him, something he has denied. He faces separate charges of attempting to subvert the election in Georgia, which were brought by prosecutors there.
Harris, by contrast, began her speech to the teachers union by praising Biden's speech and his work for the country. Biden said he was passing the torch to another generation of leaders to defeat Trump.
“He demonstrated once again what it means to be a true leader,” he said. “He really did. His words were moving.”
He also attempted to address important policy goals that he would pick up and continue with the current administration, such as affordable health care, student loan forgiveness, passing gun control measures and supporting unionized labor.
“We are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms,” Harris said. “And to this room of leaders I say: Go!”
Both candidates also commented on protesters who set fire to an American flag at Washington's Union Station on Wednesday in protest of a speech to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country is waging a brutal war against Hamas that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and razed much of Gaza.
The aftermath of the burning of an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as an Israeli flag, as protesters look on Wednesday in Washington near Union Station and the U.S. Capitol.
(Mike Stewart/Associated Press)
Once again, their messages diverged.
In a statement, Harris described “despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous rhetoric fueled by hate” and condemned the flag burning.
“That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in such a way,” Harris said. “I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: anti-Semitism, hatred and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”
Trump said anyone who does “anything that desecrates” an American flag should be jailed for a year.
“Now people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those people are stupid,” he said.
He suggested that on these issues the United States could learn from strong leaders in other countries.
“All over the world, Putin and President Xi of China, all over the world, they’re watching this. Kim Jong Un is looking at us like we’re a bunch of babies,” Trump said. “That wouldn’t happen in their countries. It’s impossible for that to happen in their countries.”
