RALEIGH, N.C. — Kamala Harris said Wednesday that she disagrees “with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” reacting after President Joe Biden made a reference to Donald Trump’s supporters and “garbage” as the vice president delivered a speech aimed at unity.
“I will represent all Americans, including those who don’t vote for me,” she said.
Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, offered the comment to reporters as she prepared to campaign in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, part of what’s expected to be a dayslong blitz of battleground states in the final week before Election Day. Her words were an attempt to blunt the controversy over Biden’s rhetoric and put some distance between herself and the president, something she has struggled with in the past.
The tumult began Tuesday night around the time that Harris was delivering a unifying message in a speech near the White House, the capstone of what her team has called the “closing argument” of her campaign. Inside the building, Biden was criticizing Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden rally, where a comedian described Puerto Rico as an “floating island of garbage.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” Biden said in a campaign call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino. “It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
Biden and the White House rushed to explain that the president was talking about the rhetoric on stage, not Trump’s supporters themselves. But Republicans seized on Biden’s comments, claiming they were an echo of the time when Hillary Clinton, as the Democratic nominee against Trump in 2016, said half of Trump’s supporters belonged to a “basket of deplorables.”
In attacking Biden, and by extension, Harris, Republicans glossed over Trump’s own history of insulting and demonizing rhetoric, such as calling the United States a “garbage can for the world” or describing political opponents as “the enemy within.” Trump has also described Harris as a “stupid person” and “lazy as hell,” and he’s questioned whether she was on drugs.
Trump has also refused demands to apologize for the comment about Puerto Rico at his rally, acknowledging that “somebody said some bad things” but adding that he “can’t imagine it’s a big deal.”
Political attack lines have a history of occasionally boomeranging back on people who use them. For example, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, now Trump’s running mate, once described Democrats as beholden to “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”
Vance’s 3-year-old comments resurfaced once he became the vice presidential nominee, energizing Harris supporters who repurposed the label as a point of pride on shirts and bumper stickers — much like Trump’s supporters once cheerfully branded themselves as “deplorables.”
On Wednesday morning, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, downplayed Biden’s comments in television interviews.
“Let’s be very clear, the vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone as a part of this,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is what needs to end.”
At Harris’ first rally of the day in Raleigh, 35-year-old Liz Kazal said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the election.
She’s tried to volunteer for the campaign every week, including making phone calls, knocking on doors with her toddler daughter and raising money for Harris’ candidacy.
“You hope for the best and plan for the worst,” Kazal said. ___ Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Adriana Gomez Licon in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, contributed to this report.