Donald Trump spoke with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network on Thursday morning where he attacked Sen. Kamala Harris, calling her a “monster” and asserting that Joe Biden would be forced to step down if he was elected because he is mentally unfit to hold the office.
As video posted to Twitter of the interview showed, which can be viewed here , Trump weighed in on last night’s vice presidential debate and the idea of a Biden-Harris presidency in an hour-long call-in exchange.
“The radical left controls Biden. Biden won’t be president for two months,” Trump said.
Bartiromo attempted to clarify his statement, asking if he believed that Biden would be forced to step down after two months in office as she nodded.
“He’s not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that. Everybody that knows him, he can’t be president,” Trump continued.
He then shifted to Biden’s running mate, who would take over as leader of the country if Biden was forced to leave the office.
“This monster that was on stage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night, by the way, but this monster she says, ‘No, no, there won’t be fracking, there won’t be this,’” he said. “Everything she said is a lie!”
Harris has said that she would ban fracking while she was running in the Democratic primary, but on stage during the debate, she confirmed that Biden had made no such commitment.
Social media users reacted to Trump’s language, criticizing him for characterizing the California senator in such a way.
“Donald Trump’s decision to call Kamala Harris a ‘monster’ is a depressing statement about his understanding of his base of supporters and what they want to be told about the first Black woman to be a major party’s vice presidential nominee,” said New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent, Olivia Nuzzi, in a tweet .
Jim Sciutto responded to the insult during a CNN segment saying that it was inappropriate language to use about a woman or an opponent.
Watch @JimSciutto ‘s reaction to Trump calling Kamala Harris a “monster:”
“My children sometimes watch this broadcast. I don’t want them to hear that kind of language from the sitting president about a woman who is running for VP and is a sitting & elected member of the Senate.” pic.twitter.com/4eJg6TjDR2
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 8, 2020
During the same interview, Trump said that he won’t participate in a virtual debate with his opponent, as is scheduled to take place next week. Originally, the event was to be held in person, but after concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus, it was decided to shift the event to a virtual format, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
Trump said that he didn’t approve of a format where the moderator could mute the participants and he would have to sit behind a computer.
The interview was Trump’s first since he was hospitalized with COVID-19.