U.S. President Trump welcomed Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., to the presidential race by blasting her as “extraordinarily nasty” and one of the “most liberal” members of the Senate.
The comments came during a White House briefing Tuesday afternoon shortly after former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, announced the selection of Harris as his running mate.
Asked during the briefing for his thoughts about Biden’s pick, Trump began his attack on Harris by airing a litany of policy grievances.
“She is a person that’s told many many stories that weren’t true. She’s very big into raising taxes, she wants to slash funds for our military, at a level that nobody can even believe,” Trump said of Harris.
Trump went on to suggest that Harris would hurt Biden in swing states because she opposed fracking, a technique used to obtain gas and oil from shale rock. Harris has called for a halt to fracking.
“She’s against petroleum products. I mean, how do you do that and go into Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or Oklahoma, the great state of Texas,” Trump said, adding, “Fracking is a big deal.”
He described Harris, who has supported universal health care, as being “in favor of socialized medicine.”
“You’re going to lose your doctors. You’re going to lose your plans,” Trump said.
During her unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris came out in favor of Medicare for all, but said her plan would in fact keep private insurers.
Trump claimed he had hoped Biden would select Harris.
“She was my number one draft pick and we’ll see how she works out,” he said. “She did very very poorly in the primaries.”
Trump also said Harris was “extraordinarily nasty” to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when she questioned him during his confirmation hearings in 2018. “I won’t forget that soon,” Trump said.
The Biden campaign and Harris’s team did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump noted Harris, who ran for president this year, sparred with Biden during a debate in the Democratic primary. “She was very disrespectful to Joe Biden,” Trump said. “It’s hard to pick somebody that’s that disrespectful.”
Trump went on to describe Harris as being “horrible” to Biden, and also deployed his favourite insult for the former vice president: “Sleepy Joe.”
