It was late Monday when Donald Trump first referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Kamabla” on his social media platform. Soon after, the former president repeated the nickname.
A day later, the Republican wrote it again. And then again. And then again. And then again.
At this point, readers might be asking, “What in the world does ‘Kamabla’ actually mean?” That’s certainly a common question this week, and no one seems to know the answer.
That includes Team Trump surrogates. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Gov. Doug Burgum last night, “This is something I’m personally curious about. … Do you know where [‘Kamabla’] came from, and what that nickname means?” The North Dakota Republican replied, “I can’t comment on that.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, was asked the same question. The Ohio Republican chuckled, but he didn’t answer the question.
The mystery, in other words, lingers.
I’ve seen a wide variety of guesses — the idea that this might be some kind of Three Dog Night reference is especially amusing — and it’s certainly possible that Trump didn’t even mean to call her “Kamabla,” but once he did, he decided to lean into the typo.
But there’s also a larger context to all of this. As a New York Times report summarized:








