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On Monday, GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee accused presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — who served as the San Francisco district attorney, the California attorney general, and a US senator before becoming the first woman, first African-American, and first Asian-American vicepresident in the nation’s history — of making it only because of her race.
Burchett, a hard-right Republican, told CNN’s Manu Raju that in selecting Harris, President Joe Biden “[j]ust skipped over… white females.”
“Are you suggesting she was a DEI hire?” Raju asked, using the acronym for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” programs meant to provide opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups.
“One hundred percent, she was a DEI hire,” Burchett replied, later posting on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, “The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president.”
On Tuesday, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who was ousted last year from his seat by the GOP’s ultra MAGA wing, called the DEI line of attack “totally stupid and dumb.”
Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press NOW, McCarthy told anchor Garrett Haake that attacking Harris along racial lines is “petty.”
“Look, I disagree with DEI, but she is the vice president of the United States,” McCarthy said. “She is the former U.S. senator. These congressmen that are saying it, they’re wrong in their own instincts.”
Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican and the current House speaker, said at a press conference yesterday, “Listen, this election, as I noted at the onset, is going to be about policies, not personalities. This is not personal regarding Kamala Harris. Her ethnicity and her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”
Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who spent four years as a senior White House aide to Donald Trump, told Fox News that targeting Harris for being a woman of color is “certainly not the rhetoric that I would focus on.”
And as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told NBC News, “Of course it’s not appropriate, for heaven’s sakes. What, are they just going to say if you’re not a white male, it’s a DEI candidate? I’m sorry. No.”
Still, the Trumpist faction of the Republican Party seems committed to the dubious strategy.
Sen. JD Vance, challenger Donald Trump’s pick for VP, in June introduced the “Dismantle DEI Act,” which aims “to eliminate all federal DEI programs and funding for federal agencies, contractors which receive federal funding, organizations which receive federal grants, and educational accreditation agencies.”
“The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division,” Vance said in a press release announcing the move. “It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society. I’m proud to introduce this legislation, which would root out DEI from our federal bureaucracy by eliminating such programs and stripping funding for DEI policies anywhere it exists.”
Trump acolyte Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, recently claimed that Harris “was chosen… [for] her gender and maybe her skin color.” Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration counterterrorism adviser who has been accused of having neo-Nazi ties, said Harris was selected “because she’s female and her skin color is the correct DEI color.”
Shortly after Hillary Clinton endorsed Harris for president, Fox News host Jesse Watters said on the air that she did so, “obviously,” because Harris is “a woman.”
While the GOP sticks to its DEI guns, a majority of Americans are in favor of DEI programs, according to an Ipsos/Washington Post poll conducted last month.
In the three full days since Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed Harris as the Democrats’ contender for the Oval Office, her campaign has taken in some $126 million — with more than $80 million being donated in the first 24 hours of her officially entering the race, which set an all-time fundraising record.
For his part, Trump, who briefly attempted to brand himself the “unity” candidate following an assassination attempt 10 days ago, has since abandoned any such pretenses.
“Wow, just watching the Fake News, and they’re doing their very best to turn the Worst President in the History of our Country into a ‘Brilliant and Heroic Leader’ (He was heroic because he quit!), and to turn ‘Dumb as a Rock’ Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future ‘Great’ President,” he posted Monday on social media. “No, it just doesn’t work that way!”
Responding to Trump’s schoolyard taunts, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, told reporters, “That’s all he’s got?”
