WASHINGTON: A report that Republican candidate Donald Trump called Kamala Harris a “bitch” is scorching the political turf in a US campaign that is turning more toxic and uglier by the day.
Although Trump has called Kamala Harris “dumb” “incompetent” and “low IQ” in public, including during a campaign speech in Montana on Friday, characterising her as a “bitch,” which the New York Times reported he did in a private meeting, takes things to a new low level.
The paper cited two people it did not name as having heard the remark on different occasions, while quoting Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung as countering, “That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala, and it’s not how the campaign would characterize her.”
Trump has publicly disparaged several women, including political rivals and female reporters, calling them “nasty” and “stupid” when challenged with tough questions. In an Access Hollywood tape, he also talked of the ease with which he could grab women by their genitals because he was famous.
While some US leaders have been known to use salty language in private ( Most notoriously, Richard Nixon called Indira Gandhi a bitch and a witch), Trump constant denigration of Harris has taken on a ferocious turn as he falls behind on the polls. At his Montana rally, he repeated his call that “she should get the hell out of here,” echoes of his exhortation to foreign-born US female lawmakers that they should go back to where they came from.
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California to immigrant parents when they were students in Berkeley, and some Trump surrogates have argued that she is not eligible to run for the White House because she is an “anchor baby” — born to parents when they were not US citizens. Constitutional experts say their status does not matter as long as she was born in the US.
New polls indicate Trump’s racist and sexist attacks are starting to backfire outside his hardcore MAGA base which laps up his racism and sexism and believes he is god’s gift to America. In fact, a NYT/Siena College poll released Friday put Harris ahead of Trump 65-56 when asked who is more intelligent.
But at his Montana rally, Trump continued to disparage her to the extent of mocking her name, wondering how she got an anglophone last name like Harris, and acknowledging he willfully mispronounces her first name.
“America cannot survive for four more years of this bumbling communist lunatic,” he told his MAGA supporters.
Although Trump has called Kamala Harris “dumb” “incompetent” and “low IQ” in public, including during a campaign speech in Montana on Friday, characterising her as a “bitch,” which the New York Times reported he did in a private meeting, takes things to a new low level.
The paper cited two people it did not name as having heard the remark on different occasions, while quoting Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung as countering, “That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala, and it’s not how the campaign would characterize her.”
Trump has publicly disparaged several women, including political rivals and female reporters, calling them “nasty” and “stupid” when challenged with tough questions. In an Access Hollywood tape, he also talked of the ease with which he could grab women by their genitals because he was famous.
While some US leaders have been known to use salty language in private ( Most notoriously, Richard Nixon called Indira Gandhi a bitch and a witch), Trump constant denigration of Harris has taken on a ferocious turn as he falls behind on the polls. At his Montana rally, he repeated his call that “she should get the hell out of here,” echoes of his exhortation to foreign-born US female lawmakers that they should go back to where they came from.
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California to immigrant parents when they were students in Berkeley, and some Trump surrogates have argued that she is not eligible to run for the White House because she is an “anchor baby” — born to parents when they were not US citizens. Constitutional experts say their status does not matter as long as she was born in the US.
New polls indicate Trump’s racist and sexist attacks are starting to backfire outside his hardcore MAGA base which laps up his racism and sexism and believes he is god’s gift to America. In fact, a NYT/Siena College poll released Friday put Harris ahead of Trump 65-56 when asked who is more intelligent.
But at his Montana rally, Trump continued to disparage her to the extent of mocking her name, wondering how she got an anglophone last name like Harris, and acknowledging he willfully mispronounces her first name.
“America cannot survive for four more years of this bumbling communist lunatic,” he told his MAGA supporters.