In an interview broadcast on Sunday night, Sen. Kamala Harris of California said that she believes President Donald Trump is “racist,” The Hill reported.
Harris, who is Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, made the remarks during an appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes .
“Do you think the president is racist?” anchor Norah O’Donnell asked.
“Yes, I do,” Harris responded.
“You can look at a pattern that goes back to him questioning the identity of the first Black president of the United States,” she said, referring to Barack Obama.
“You can look at Charlottesville, when there were peaceful protesters and on the other side, neo-Nazis and he talks about fine people on either side,” Harris continued.
She then pointed to Trump’s rhetoric and his administration’s policies as evidence that he is “racist.”
“Calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. His first order of business was to institute a Muslim ban. It all speaks for itself.”
According to the Hill report, Trump was one of the most vocal proponents of the so-called birther conspiracy theory, which promoted the incorrect idea that Obama was not born in the U.S.
Trump has promoted similar theories about Harris. In August, he amplified a controversial column penned by conservative law professor John Eastman.
In the op-ed, Eastman argued that Harris is ineligible to serve in the White House because her mother was an Indian national and her father a Jamaican national, and neither of the two was a naturalized citizen at the time of her birth.
As The Hill noted, in recent weeks, Trump has ramped up his attacks on Harris, suggesting that she is a radical politician who would turn America into a “socialist nation.”
At a recent rally, he slammed the idea of a “female socialist” leading the country.
Neither Harris nor Biden are socialists, but Trump and his allies have long tried to cast them as such. As The New York Times reported, both Democrats have expressed vocal opposition to progressive policy proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
Trump’s attacks have not worked, polling suggests. He is still trailing Biden in most nationwide and battleground-state polls.
However, left-leaning lawmakers, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , have argued that the Biden administration could be persuaded to adopt more progressive policies.
In a recent interview, Ocasio-Cortez noted that Biden would be more “receptive” to influence from the left than Trump and argued that all Democrats should vote for him on November 3.
