Harris’s campaign responds: ‘In a stunning senile moment Trump suggested it was Harris who treated Pence poorly’
Donald Trump has drawn ridicule and accusations of hypocrisy after accusing Kamala Harris of mistreating Mike Pence, the former vice-president who his supporters said should be hanged during the January 6 insurrection that he incited.
The Republican nominee’s comments came in an interview with Fox News when he also singled out Harris’s 2018 cross-examination of Brett Kavanaugh during Senate confirmation hearings after Trump, then president, nominated him as a justice on the US Supreme Court.
“They say she has many deficiencies, but she’s a nasty person,” Trump told the interviewer, Mark Levin. “The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible. The way she treated Justice Kavanaugh in that hearing – in the history of Congress, nobody’s been treated that way.”
Trump’s comments prompted a response from Harris’s campaign, which appeared to interpret it as an example of age-related confusion and evidence that the former president, who is 78 and now the oldest presidential candidate in US history following Joe Biden’s withdrawal, is in mental decline.
“In a stunning senile moment, Donald Trump just suggested it was Kamala Harris who treated Mike Pence poorly,” the campaign posted on X, linking to video footage of Trump’s comments.
“Donald Trump clearly cannot remember anything. Retweet to make sure all Americans see this hypocritical and senile moment.”
In fact, Trump may have been referring to a 2020 vice-presidential debate between Harris and Pence, when the now Democratic nominee twice told her opponent “I’m speaking” when he tried to interrupt her as she articulated an argument.
However, the comments evoked social media references to Trump’s notorious treatment of Pence after his presidential election defeat to Biden, when he tried to pressure the vice-president into refusing to certify the results in Congress, as dictated by the US constitution, and then egged on a mob to attack the US Capitol while Pence was inside.
Posting on social media, David Corn, a journalist with Mother Jones, wrote: “What? Did she call him the p-word and incite the violent mob that chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’? Because if she did, she probably should drop out of the race.”
On the morning of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack, Trump reportedly told Pence: “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.”
Later, with the crowd baying for the vice president’s blood, Trump allegedly told aides that “Mike Pence deserves it”.
Last year, Trump renewed his assault against Pence at a time when the former vice-president – who has refused to endorse his current presidential bid – was running for the Republican nomination, calling him “delusional” and “not a very good person”.
Speaking to CNN last week along with her running mate, Tim Walz, Harris – who Trump has called “nasty” several times – confirmed to interviewers Dana Bash that she and and the former president have never met.
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