Democratic VP candidate Kamala Harris hitting back at Republican President Trump said he and his campaign will resort to lies and deception to decry her. The statement came after the President came up with the birther conspiracy about the Indian American last week as he questioned his eligibility to serve as the vice president of the nation.
“They’re going to engage in an attempt to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people. And I expect that they will engage in dirty tactics. And this is going to be a knockdown, drag-out. And we’re ready,” Harris told media outlet TheGrio in an interview released Sunday. This was her second appearance for interview since Presumptive Democratic nominee and former VP Joe Biden named her as his deputy. If elected, she would become, Ms. Kamala would become the first Black and South American VP of US.
On Saturday Trump said he would go to the length of rejecting Harris’ candidature but would not completely reject the conspiracy theories shadowing her eligibility.
“I know nothing about it, but it’s not something that bothers me,” the President said during a news conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. “I just don’t know about it but it’s not something we will be pursuing.”
Trump on Thursday didn’t have a conclusive comment on whether the Senator met the requirements to serve as president or VP, saying he heard on social media that Harris is not qualified to run for the post. The California senator was born in Oakland, California making her eligible for the VP office.
“I heard today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” Trump said, referring to John Eastman, the lawyer and Chapman University professor who raised the issue in a Newsweek op-ed, as “very highly qualified.” On Saturday, Trump called him a “brilliant lawyer.”
Newsweek editors have since issued apologies for the biased opinion piece, writing, “This op-Ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize.” They added that they will not take it down for transparency.
Speaking to TheGrio in an interview taped Saturday, Harris said, “I’m very clear-eyed about the fact that they are going to engage, as you said, in what they have done throughout his administration, which is, let’s just be very candid and straightforward: They’re going to engage in lies. They’re going to engage in deception.”
“Nothing that we have ever achieved that has been about progress has come without a fight,” she added.
On Sunday in another virtual interview given to Essence, Kamala Harris voiced same expressions, saying she is ready to contribute in the change.
“There’s no question that we need immediate change and drastic change and that’s so much of what the Biden-Harris platform and what the Biden-Harris administration will be about,” Harris said. “It’s about saying, we need to immediately address a number of issues that demand priority and immediate attention. And that relates to getting people back to work. It means investing in infrastructure and creating millions of new jobs. It means fighting for healthcare for all people.”
“There are some who just say, ‘Look, but you were prosecutor, period.’ And the inference there or the assumption there is, I was part of the system that harmed the communities, the community from which I come,” Harris told TheGrio. “And I think that we need to really distinguish that point from the plane of we can’t only be on the outside of these systems that we need to change. It also requires that we go inside.”
She told Essence that that she is proud of the work she accomplished and that her administration would do more for criminal justice reform.
“I have seen too many cases of not only unarmed Black folks being killed, but women,” she said, adding, “And we need to speak their name and understand that we have to have justice.”
