The Republican senator and Donald Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham has warned that Trump is in danger of losing the US presidential election if he continues to talk about Kamala Harris’s race and make other personal attacks instead of focusing on policy issues.
Graham’s comments came on Meet The Press when asked whether he agreed with Nikki Haley’s recent admonition that Trump and Republicans should “quit whining” and stop “talking about what race Kamala Harris is”.
“Yeah. I don’t think – I don’t look at vice-president Kamala Harris as a lunatic,” Graham told moderator Kristin Welker. “I look at her as the most liberal person to be nominated for president in the history of the United States.”
He said the election should be fought on policy. “A nightmare for Harris is to defend her policy choices,” he said.
“President Trump can win this election,” Graham continued. “If you have a policy debate, he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.”
Trump’s ad hominem digs against Harris have ranged from disparaging and false comments about her race and intelligence to snide remarks about her appearance. During a Saturday rally Trump said: “I’m a better looking person than Kamala” and that Harris had “the laugh of a crazy person”.
With Harris rising in the polls many saw Trump’s rally, in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, as an opportunity for him to reboot his campaign by focusing on issues of importance to voters, but he has instead continued to emphasize personal differences.
Trump has repeatedly questioned the racial identity of Harris, whose mother is Indian and father is Jamaican. In a chaotic appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists several weeks ago, Trump incorrectly claimed that Harris suddenly “became a Black woman” and falsely stated that she had only identified with her Indian background.
“Is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump remarked, prompting audible gasps. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of sudden she became a Black woman.”
Harris on Sunday suggested without naming him directly that Trump’s habit of constantly attacking opponents made him a “coward”.
“Over the last several years there’s been this kind of perversion that has taken place, I think, which is to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down. When what we know is the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up,” Harris said at a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania. “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward.”
JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, has previously described Harris as a coward, too, in keeping with his running mate’s personal attacks on her.
“President Trump walked right into the NABJ conference and showed he had the courage to take tough questions, while Kamala Harris continues to hide from any scrutiny or unfriendly media like the coward she is,” Vance wrote last month.
