Remember when Trump made some concerning comments about Kamala Harris

Politics in the United States can be downright dirty sometimes, but no political leader in the country has ever gone as far as former president Donald Trump when insulting his political rivals.

In August, Trump took things to a new low when he attacked Kamala Harris for her looks and claimed he was the more beautiful of the two while speaking to an audience of his supporters during a campaign rally.

Donald Trump had been attacking Vice President Kamala Harris ever since she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. But during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he said something very weird about Harris. 

While speaking to a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on August 17th, the former president went after the Vice President’s looks and said that he was better looking than she was according to several media reports. 

Trump specifically zeroed in on a recent Time magazine cover that featured Harris and went off on what Vanity Fair called a “long-winded, meandering address that featured Trump insisting that he is more attractive than his opponent.”

Photo Credit: X @TIME

“You don't mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you?” Trump said roughly four minutes into his campaign speech before going on to claim that when he first saw the Time magazine cover of Harris he didn’t realize that it was her. 

“I said, ‘is that Sophia Loren?’ I couldn't, who might that be? ‘Is that Elizabeth Taylor?’” Trump explained. He then turned his attention to comments from “former Reagan speechwriter” that Vanity Fair noted was likely Wall Street Journal communist Peggy Noonan. 

“She said one thing that got me,” Trump said, referring to the columns about Kamala Harris’ beauty that were being written by Noonan, “She said Kamala has one big advantage, she’s a very beautiful woman. She’s a beautiful woman.” 

Trump’s crowd booed at the mention of Harris being a beautiful woman and the former president followed up his remark by saying: "I say that I’m much better looking than her. Much better. Much better. I’m a better looking person than Kamala.”

Trump’s crowd of supporters cheered as he declared himself more beautiful than Harris but the incident might strike some as the exact type of ‘weird’ situation that the Vice President’s running mate Tim Walz had previously pointed out about their conservative opponents. 

The former president might have won even more love from his base with his awkward hits against Harris at the time, but such attacks could be the reason why more voters seem to have turned toward Harris as the better option to lead the country.

Harris has seen a 16-point jump in her favorability among voters since July according to an NBC News poll. Such a huge increase hasn't been seen since  President George W. Bush's favorability surged following the September 11th attacks according to NBC News report Mark Murry. 

Vanity Fair pointed out Trump’s comments came on the heels of racist and misogynistic comments the former president has made about the first Black and South Asian woman to run for president. But this wasn't the first time Trump has talked about Harris’ beauty. 

The former president seemed to be a little too uniquely fixated on the Vice President’s appearance and her Time magazine cover. During Trump’s live stream on X Spaces with Elon Musk he said Harris “looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live,” according to Politico.

Trump even compared Harris to his wife Melania, saying: “Actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania. She didn’t look like Kamala” before adding: “But of course, she’s a beautiful woman, so we’ll leave it at that, right?” 

The former president had publicly mentioned the Vice President’s Time magazine cover no less than four times at the time according to The Independent, which noted that Trump's strategy of using personal attacks worked to great effect against Biden when focused on his age. 

“It’s a strategy that he carried out when running against President Joe Biden, with Trump often mentioning the president’s age and questioning whether or not he was mentally competent,” wrote The Independent’s Ariana Baio. 

“That attack, in combination with Biden’s disastrous presidential debate performance, resonated with voters who agreed that Biden’s age posed a problem for him to run the country for the next four years,” Baio continued. However, Trump's strategy isn't working well against Harris. 

While Trump’s attacks were very effective against Biden they seem to have been falling flat and even hurting the former president when he goes after Harris. This also continued into September. Only time will tell if Trump can find a way to attack Harris that won’t hurt him in the process. 

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