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 journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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