Trump denigrates Harris as 'lazy,' invoking a racist trope against Black people

 

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday called his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris “lazy," criticizing the vice president with a word long used to demean Black people in racist terms.

“Who the hell takes off when you have 14 days left,” Trump said at a campaign event in Doral, Florida, aimed at courting Latino voters. “She's lazy. She's lazy as hell.”

Harris was spending Tuesday in meetings in Washington, D.C., and was scheduled to sit for recorded interviews with Telemundo and NBC to air Tuesday evening. It was the first day in more than two weeks that the Democratic nominee had no public events scheduled after a run of more than 14 consecutive days of travel to political events in pivotal states, including a three-state run on Monday, starting in Pennsylvania, continuing to Michigan and ending in Wisconsin.

Trump has often characterized Harris as weak and challenged her mental competence, as he did again Tuesday, referring to her as “slow” and as someone with a “low IQ.”

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Harris, noted that Trump canceled a Tuesday afternoon town hall with allies Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard before his evening rally in North Carolina.

“Donald Trump continuing his recent trend of canceling campaign events... With just two weeks to go...,” wrote Sams on X. “Granted, this one seemed like a real peach, so don’t blame them for wanting to call it off!”

The former president has questioned the work ethic of various opponents throughout his career. He accused President Joe Biden in 2020 of campaigning from his basement, even as Trump continued to hold large events during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2016 routinely called Democrat Hillary Clinton physically weak and low-energy.

Trump has also engaged in questioning people's racial backgrounds — including Harris' — and racial dog whistles and overtly racist rhetoric have been fixtures of Trump’s public life.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-denigrates-harris-lazy-invoking-202055066.html