Remember when the Harris campaign called Trump 'a bitter, unhinged, 78-year-old convicted felon'?
Kamala Harris and her campaign have completely transformed what once was a relatively stale and unenthusiastic Democratic effort to beat Donald Trump in November into a completely different and unrecognizable race. But Americans should have seen this coming.
It was difficult to imagine that when Harris announced she would work to earn the Democratic presidential nomination, she would turn the race completely upside but there were a few clues that her campaign was going to be a lot different than Biden's effort to defeat Trump.
One of the earliest signs that showed the Harris campaign was going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Trump and combat his strange style of personal attacks could be seen in how the Vice President's team dealt with the first attacks the former president launched at her after Biden dropped out.
The former president tested out several different attack lines against Harris in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the site of a campaign rally that saw Trump trying to work out the best way to hit Harris with only a few months remaining in the election cycle at that time.
“We have a new victim now, Kamala. A brand new victim, and honestly she’s a radical left lunatic. When you find out about her, all I have to say is defund the police,” Trump said according to a quote of his comments published by Politico.
“Three months ago, she was thought of so badly, [the media] were just killing her. And now they’re trying to make her into, let’s say, Margaret Thatcher. I don’t think so,” the former president said at another point in his speech the news outlet noted.
“It’s not going to happen. Margaret Thatcher didn’t laugh like that. Did she? If she did, she wouldn’t have been Margaret Thatcher,” Trump continued. However, that wasn't the only insult the former president levied against Vice President Harris.
Salon also reported on Trump’s rambunctious attack lines and noted he referred to Harris as “probably the most far-left person in American history.” Trump's remark was a bit ridiculous but the Vice President's campaign team was quick to respond.
In a statement published by Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika, Harris and her team responded to Trump’s remarks in brilliant fashion, with Chitika noting on X that the campaign watched “the unhinged speech of a bitter, 78-year-old felon" so that others didn't have to watch it.
"Tonight in Minnesota, a bitter, unhinged, 78-year-old convicted felon kept clinging to his lies about the 2020 election he lost being 'rigged, rambled about his former opponent and golfing, and made excuses for why he's afraid to debate Vice President Harris,” Chitika's statement read.
"Trump has made his goals clear: he's determined to drag us backward, undermine our democracy, and enact his Project 2025 agenda to rip away our freedoms,” the statement continued.
The statement added that voters would unite “to reject the politics of hatred and division, grow the middle class, and make sure convicted criminal Donald Trump doesn't get anywhere near the White House.”
The most interesting part of the statement posted by Chitika on X was not what she said but rather the 19 false claims, mistruths, and outright fibes that the former president said during his campaign rally in St. Cloud.
Photo Credit: X @SarafinaChitika
The Harris campaign's response to Trump's attacks was an interesting new way, and a far more aggressive way, to deal with the former president's combativeness.
The new tactic also seems to have worked since then because as of August 28th, Trump still has yet to find a line of attack against the Vice President that has resonated with voters outside of the former president's base.