Trump’s Biggest Problem With Kamala Harris? She Was “Mean” to Brett Kavanaugh.

Jim Loscalzo/CNP/Zuma

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Today, after presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate, President Donald Trump seized the chance to attack Harris at his coronavirus press briefing. The only sustained criticism of Harris that Donald Trump could muster? She was too “mean” to Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Taking a softball question from a New York Post reporter, Trump resorted to playing his hits: calling a woman in a position of power “nasty.”

“She was extraordinarily nasty to Kavanaugh,” he said. “She was nasty to a level that was just a horrible thing.”

Besides being explicitly sexist, Trump’s focus on the Kavanaugh hearing was a non sequitur. The Post reporter had lobbed him a question about marijuana and Harris’ record on prosecutions—easy bait that Trump ignored.

During Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearing before the Senate, Harris grilled the justice on whether he had spoken to anyone at a law firm founded by Trump’s personal lawyer about Robert Mueller’s investigation. Kavanaugh was unable to come up with an answer. Here is the exchange:

Later in the briefing, Trump was asked directly whether Biden’s VP pick would help his chances at winning the presidency. He repeated his dig at Harris—she was so “nasty” to Kavanaugh. “I thought she was the meanest, the most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the US Senate,” he said.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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