Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris framed her likely upcoming fight against Donald Trump as one between a prosecutor and a criminal \u2014 describing, from her new campaign headquarters Monday, her experience taking on \u201cpredators,\u201d \u201cfraudsters\u201d and \u201ccheaters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump around the same time, meanwhile, took to Truth Social to call Harris \u201cDumb as a Rock.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments, both made as Trump and Harris began preparing to take on each other after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, provided a glimpse into the two candidates\u2019 expected lines of attack.<\/p>\n
Trump, who during a rally in Michigan Saturday night called Harris \u201ccrazy,\u201d \u201cnuts,\u201d and \u201cLaughing Kamala,\u201d is likely to turn to ad hominem attacks against her, while Harris is expected to lean into her experience as a prosecutor \u2014 and Trump\u2019s status as a felon with wide-ranging legal problems.<\/p>\n
Trump on Monday fired off a post expressing that he was bothered by the television news coverage he saw of Harris and Biden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, just watching the Fake News, and they\u2019re doing their very best to turn the Worst President in the History of our Country into a \u2018Brilliant and Heroic Leader\u2019 (He was heroic because he quit!), and to turn \u201cDumb as a Rock\u201d Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future \u201cGreat\u201d President,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. \u201cNo, it just doesn\u2019t work that way!\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s insults of his opponent\u2019s intelligence aren\u2019t limited to Harris. At the rally Saturday, Trump used the word \u201cstupid\u201d no fewer than 13 times, more than half of which were in reference to Biden, who he also repeatedly called \u201clow IQ.\u201d During the Republican primary, Trump nicknamed Nikki Haley \u201cBirdbrain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has long deployed sexist remarks against women standing in his way, particularly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. At the time, he didn\u2019t just attack Hillary Clinton, the first female nominee of a major political party, but others like Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and conservative journalist Megyn Kelly.<\/p>\n
During his campaign against Clinton, Trump made fun of her for \u201cshouting,\u201d accused her of only having \u201cthe woman card\u201d to play, of not having \u201cthe look\u201d to be president, and notably, of being a \u201cnasty woman.\u201d More recently, Trump has launched personal attacks against Black Democratic women like New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.<\/p>\n
His comments about women \u2014 often brought up by critics discussing his unpresidential \u201crhetoric\u201d \u2014 have previously cost him support with suburban and college educated voters, despite his 2016 Electoral College win. A redeployment of similar verbal assaults against Harris could spell Trump new problems in an election that, for months, he has led solidly.<\/p>\n
While Trump has been trying out new nicknames and attack lines against Harris, his campaign and allies, meanwhile, have sought to tie Harris to unpopular Biden policies, chiefly the southern border.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame year \u2014 same people \u2014 same record of failure \u2014 same result,\u201d Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote of Harris in a \u201cState of Play Day 1\u201d memo Monday night, calling her \u201cBorder Czar Kamala Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware on Monday, Harris distilled her case against Trump.<\/p>\n
“I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds,\u201d Harris said. \u201cPredators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris continued by saying Trump \u201cwants to take our country backwards, to a time before many of our fellow American had full freedoms and rights.\u201d<\/p>\n