TUCSON, Arizona — The Trump-Vance campaign is weaponizing Vice President Kamala Harris’s appearance on The View, during which she said there was “not a thing” she would do differently from President Joe Biden.
Both Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), played a campaign ad during their respective Wednesday rallies that features a clip of Harris’s interview in an effort to portray her campaign as “more of the same” as Biden.
Harris was asked during her appearance on the show whether she would have done anything differently from Biden.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris responded, adding, “I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”
Later in the interview, Harris noted that she planned to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet, something the Biden administration didn’t do.
Speaking to a crowd at the Tucson Speedway on Wednesday, Vance immediately brought up Harris’s interview, calling her comments “amazing for us.”
“Kamala’s entire campaign is running on — she doesn’t even know who Joe Biden is, she pretends that she is not sitting Vice President of the United States, and her campaign is to run as much as she can, as far as she can from Joe Biden and his disastrous record,” Vance said.
“So you would think that when she’s asked the question well, ‘What has Joe Biden done that you disagree with?’ that she might actually have a halfway decent answer.”
Vance then instructed the production staff to pull up a clip of the interview that has become the centerpiece of a new ad campaign. The ad features the clip of the interview, followed by a voiceover from Trump saying he approves the message. As soon as the ad ended, Vance proclaimed it was his idea.
At .@JDVance’s rally in Tucson, he plays a new ad that he says was his idea, featuring Kamala Harris’s interview with the View. pic.twitter.com/A6EDoQ0vM5
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) October 9, 2024
The Ohio senator went on to highlight Biden’s record on immigration and the economy, attempting to undercut Harris’s campaign slogan, “A New Way Forward.”
“We’ve got Kamala Harris now admitting that she is not the candidate of change. She is the candidate of more of the same,” Vance said.
Across the nation, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump also played a clip of Harris’s appearance on The View during a rally in Scranton.
“I think the other one asking the question is dumber than Kamala,” Trump said about The View co-host Sunny Hostin. “She’s a dummy. I watched her over the years … That is one dumb woman. Sorry. I’m sorry, women, she’s a dummy.”
Trump repeatedly brought up her remarks on the show during his rally, mocking her responses.
“How about the Oct. 7 attack on Israel? That would have been never happened,” Trump said. “How about the fact that the United States is a laughing stock all over the world? How about she failed on the witch hunts against her political opponent?”
The former president claimed that the question was a softball and Harris could have “done it in a nice way. I wish I would have done this on the border. I wish we would have closed up the border. I wish we didn’t have the horrific acts of violence against all of those children.”
Trump then jabbed that Harris “didn’t know what the hell to say of it.”
“To me, that is a disqualifying answer. That should disqualify her from even running,” he added.
The clip could undercut Harris’s campaign messaging of being the change candidate after replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in late July.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed Harris had a slight lead over Trump as the candidate representing change, 46% to 44%.
During the Scranton rally, Trump played multiple video clips of ads disparaging Harris over her comments on The View, her fracking stance, and her tax proposals.
Earlier in the rally, Trump claimed allies had cautioned him to be “nice” to Harris, but he soundly rejected that advice.
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“I don’t want to be nice. You know, somebody said you should be nicer. Women won’t like it. I said I don’t care,” Trump told the crowd. “A guy came up to me today. He said, ‘Sir, you really should be nicer to her. The women won’t like it.’ The women want safety, and the women want to have a country that they can be proud of, I think.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.