Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, and when the host started to ask how international leaders would respond to a Kamala Harris presidency, the Republican interrupted before she was even done with the question.
“They’ll walk all over her,” the former president said, adding, “She’ll be like a play toy.” Trump then appeared to turn toward the camera and said, “And I don’t want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it.”
In context, the implicit racism and sexism in the on-air comments seemed obvious. The fact that Trump was an international laughingstock during his White House tenure didn’t help matters, either.
But the idea that Harris wouldn’t be taken seriously on the international stage was also discredited by reality soon after Trump made his ugly remarks. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Vice President Kamala Harris played a role in negotiations with allies to secure the prisoner-swap deal. Harris met with both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob separately in intimate settings during the Munich Security Conference in February to urge both leaders to push the deal through, according to a White House official. Harris’s meeting with Scholz was particularly critical to securing the exchange because releasing Krasikov was a key Russian demand.
The Journal’s report added that Harris had met Scholz previously on several occasions, and as an administration official put it, the vice president had a “good working relationship with him.” That’s “part of the reason why she was able to have a really good, frank conversation with him.”
A White House official also confirmed with NBC News that when it came to the difficult international process, Harris “moved the ball forward significantly.” Note, Harris hadn’t met Slovenia’s Golob before this year’s Munich Security Conference, and as the Journal’s report noted, “Their meeting was the highest-level U.S. engagement at the time with the Slovenian government, which was holding two Russian nationals Moscow wanted released. That meeting was also restricted to just Harris, Golob and two aides.” Slovenia soon after agreed to participate in the international deal, which is what happens when foreign officials take U.S. officials seriously.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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