Former President Donald Trump called rival Kamala Harris a “s— vice president” at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening, underscoring his broader argument that she is too liberal in a more aggressive manner and with new vulgarity.
“Bernie is radical left, and this one, Kamala, is even further left,” Trump told the crowd at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport. “And then you have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore. We can’t stand you. You’re a… vice president.”
Trump added the slogan from his former television program “The Apprentice” to the cheers: “Kamala, you’re fired,” he said. “Get out of here.”
Trump told the crowd that profanity helps him emphasize his arguments, but the sharper attack also underlines a recent increase in personal invective in a close race that is in its final weeks. Trump regularly insults Harris’ intelligence, calling her “not a smart person” or having a “low IQ.” At a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, he called her a “terrible person” and said he didn’t want to be nice.
Harris, campaigning in Atlanta on Saturday, criticized Trump for rambling in his public comments. “He has a tendency to go off script and wander and generally cannot complete a thought for the rest of his life,” she said. “And he called it the weave. But I think we call it nonsense here.’
Earlier in the day, Harris laid out her argument in Detroit that Trump is not fit for the presidency.
“He’s becoming more and more unstable and unhinged,” she said. “The American people are seeing it and witnessing it in real time. The American people deserve better than someone who seems unstable.”
Trump spent 12 minutes at the beginning of his roughly 90-minute speech telling stories about Palmer, the late professional golfer after whom the airport is named. At one point he suggested that Palmer had unusually large genitals.
“He was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he was in the shower with the other pros, they came out and said, ‘Oh, my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said.
The Harris campaign quickly pounced on the anecdote. A Harris campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, suggested someone should do a “health check” on the former president, while another, Matt Corridoni, posted on X that Trump “had a completely normal illness.” In a statement, her campaign sarcastically chided Trump for focusing on “the issue that matters most to voters in this election: the … anatomy of a deceased golfer.”
An NBC News poll earlier this month found Harris and Trump tied at 48% each nationally, while state polls in Pennsylvania and other battlegrounds have consistently placed them within the margin of error of each other.
Harris on Saturday portrayed Trump as too tired for the job they both seek, a partisan reversal of Republican claims that President Joe Biden is incapacitated. Trump, for his part, called Biden “mentally disabled” on Saturday.
Biden dropped out of the race this summer and helped Harris clinch the Democratic nomination with his endorsement after stumbling badly in a debate against Trump.
“Now he’s dodging debates and canceling interviews due to exhaustion,” Harris said. Trump canceled an interview with NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans that was supposed to be taped Monday; his campaign said it would reschedule but had not yet done so.
He also withdrew in recent days from a CNBC interview and a planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event.
On Friday, speaking to reporters in Michigan, Harris took a sharper attack on Trump over his energy levels.
“Being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world,” Harris said. “And so we really have to ask ourselves, is he exhausted on the campaign trail, is he qualified to do the job?”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
