Donald Trump labels his opponent, Kamala Harris, ‘mentally disabled’ in latest rhetorical escalation
Just when you thought America’s political debate could not sink any lower, the insults have escalated.
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Donald Trump has called his election opponent, Kamala Harris, “mentally disabled” in the latest escalation of his rhetoric against her.
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way,” Mr Trump told his supporters during a rally in the swing state Wisconsin today.
“She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.”
The shot at Ms Harris’s intelligence lines up with Mr Trump’s previous, repeated claims that the Vice President is a “low IQ individual”.
Ms Harris took over from Mr Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in late July after concerns about his age and mental acuity led his own party to force him out of the race. She will face Mr Trump, the Republican nominee, in the election on November 5.
“I can’t even believe she’s being considered,” Mr Trump said today.
“She was considered, eight weeks ago, the worst vice president in history. A very dumb person. The fake news was calling her ‘dumb’, ‘stupid’, ‘didn’t have a chance’.”
Before she became Vice President in 2021, Ms Harris was a prosecutor, the district-attorney of San Francisco, the attorney-general of California and then a US senator.
If she wins in November she will become the country’s first female president.
Much of Mr Trump’s speech in Wisconsin focused on immigration. He blamed Ms Harris for the passage of undocumented migrants across America’s border with Mexico.
To drive home that message, he spoke in front of a backdrop which featured the slogans “End Migrant Crime” and “Deport Illegals Now”.
“Look, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to get these people back where they came from. You have no choice. You’re going to lose your culture,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump has promised to deport undocumented migrants on an unprecedented scale, should he return to the presidency in January, though he has yet to specify how any such deportation program would work, given the sheer numbers involved.
There are thought to be about 12 million undocumented migrants living in the United States, with some estimates going as high as 20 million. Rounding them up, and removing them from the country, would require an immense, highly co-ordinated operation from the government, as well as co-operation from their countries of origin.
In the weeks since his debate against Ms Harris, Mr Trump and his nominee for vice president, Senator J.D. Vance, have largely focused their fire on a community of Haitian immigrants living in the city Springfield, Ohio.
The Republican candidates initially seized on thin rumours that the migrants had been killing and eating people’s pets.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. This is what’s happening in our country, and it is a shame,” Mr Trump claimed during that debate.
There is still no actual evidence for that allegation.
The woman whose Facebook post was picked up by right-wing figures on social media, causing the pet-eating rumour to go viral and, apparently, grab the former president’s attention, has since clarified that her cat – which she initially thought had been stolen by migrants – was found alive and well in her own basement.
She says she regrets her initial post.
Mr Vance, in particular, also claims the Haitians’ arrival in Springfield has coincided with a “massive rise” in communicable diseases. Official data shows that disease rates have, in fact, fallen during the relevant time period.
We should note that the Haitians living in Springfield are not illegal immigrants; they are in the country legally.
Harris and Trump host Zelensky
Mr Trump and Ms Harris both met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late last week, in a brief diversion from their usual focus on domestic policy.
During joint remarks with Mr Zelensky in Washington D.C., Ms Harris accused some Republicans of essentially taking Russia’s side in its war against Ukraine.
“There are some in my country who would force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory. Who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality. And would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations,” she said.
“These proposals are the same of those of Putin. And let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”
During the aforementioned debate, Ms Harris accused her opponent of being easily “manipulated” by autocrats.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The eastern European nation has, to a large extent, been reliant on Western aid to help it resist Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Ahead of his own meeting with the Ukrainian leader, Mr Trump said he believed he would “be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky quite quickly”.
He has previously expressed confidence that he could broker such a deal before even taking office, should he win in November. Pressed for details, he has not specified what such a deal would entail – whether it would, for example, involve Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.
“What does that deal look like?” a reporter asked him last week.
“I don’t want to tell you what that looks like,” Mr Trump responded.
There is a somewhat fraught history between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky. A phone call between the pair was the catalyst for Mr Trump’s first impeachment when he was president (the second impeachment was instigated by the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021).
In that phone call, Mr Trump pressured his counterpart to start an investigation, in Ukraine, into Mr Biden, who at that time was considered Mr Trump’s most likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election, and the business dealings of his son, Hunter.
Mr Trump was accused of abusing the powers of his office by delaying military aid to Ukraine, giving him leverage to pressure a foreign country to interfere in America’s domestic politics. The Republican-controlled US Senate acquitted him in the impeachment trial.
Speaking alongside Mr Zelensky in New York on Friday, Mr Trump argued that his “very good relationship with President Putin” would lead to a quick resolution of the war.
“We both want to see this end, and we both want to see a fair deal made,” he said.
“It should stop. And the President (Mr Zelensky” wants it to stop, and I’m sure President Putin wants it to stop, and that’s a good combination.”
Mr Trump spent a chunk of his remarks talking about the impeachment, thanking Mr Zelensky for being “like a piece of steel” during the saga.
“He could have grandstanded and played cute, but he didn’t do that,” said Mr Trump.
“He said, ‘President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong.’ He said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there.”
That is not a direct quote of Mr Zelensky, whose stance throughout the impeachment drama was as you would expect from a foreign leader – he tried to stay out of it.
Posting on social media after his departure from New York, the Ukrainian President said his discussions with Mr Trump had been “meaningful”.
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