In her first week as an unexpected presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris confronted plenty of racist and sexist lines of attack, but as a Washington Post report makes clear, Donald Trump added to this record in an especially ugly way in his latest Fox News interview.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested that Vice President Harris wouldn’t be able to stand up to world leaders because of her appearance, adding that he didn’t want to spell it out but viewers would know what he meant.
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham started to ask the GOP candidate how international leaders would consider a Harris presidency, but before she could even finish asking, Trump interjected.
“They’ll walk all over her,” the former president said, adding, “She’ll be so easy for them. She’ll be like a play toy. They look at her and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’”
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.”
Trump on China and Russia: I think they will walk all over her. She will be so easy for them. She will be like a play toy.. And I don't want to say as to why. But a lot of people understand it pic.twitter.com/bRDhOY7dhB
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 30, 2024
A Trump campaign spokesperson told the Post the Republican nominee wasn’t referring to race or gender, and if you believe that, I have a lovely Trump University seminar I’d love to sell you.
The obvious problem with the former president’s comments was that they were overtly offensive in ways even he should be able to understand. But there are plenty of less obvious problems, too.
For one thing, Harris has spent the last four years in national office, meeting with international officials and leaving no doubt that she’s a force to be reckoned with. For another, if Trump is so convinced that international leaders will walk all over the Democrat, perhaps he could explain why he’s so afraid to share a debate stage with her.
But perhaps most important is the degree to which Trump keeps failing tests of self-awareness.
Indeed, if he’s looking for an American leader who wasn’t taken seriously abroad, Trump probably ought to find a mirror. In 2018, for example, he addressed the United Nations general assembly, where foreign diplomats literally laughed at him. China’s state-run media routinely characterized Trump — during his presidency — as a bumbling fool who had a habit of slapping himself in the face. Even U.S. allies quietly conceded that they perceived the then-president as an intemperate child with a short attention span. Let’s also not forget about a 2019 international gathering in which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the U.K.’s Boris Johnson were overheard mocking Trump, treating him like a punch-line to a joke they found rather exasperating. Russia’s Vladimir Putin was more reluctant to ridicule Trump in public, but that’s only because he enjoyed walking all over the Republican and didn’t feel the need to put that advantage at risk. All of which is to say, Trump’s latest line of attack isn’t just ugly, and it isn’t just wrong. It’s also the latest example of the former president engaging in projection.
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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