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Donald Trump heightened his disparaging rhetoric about Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally on Saturday, claiming she was born “mentally impaired” and is “mentally disabled” in his speech.
The former president made the false assertions to a room of supporters in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, seemingly as a way to undermine Harris’s leadership on immigration.
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala, was born that way,” Trump said to the audience, who erupted into laughter. “She was born that way.”
The former president continued: “And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could’ve allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.”
The “this” Trump was referring to is the influx of migrants who have come into the United States over the last year. A pillar of Trump’s campaign is blaming Harris for migrant crossings by falsely claiming it was her responsibility as vice president to tackle the issue.
Multiple Biden administration officials have said that Harris was only tasked with understanding the root cause of mass migration in Central American countries and leading diplomatic efforts to reduce those causes.
Maria Town, the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said Trump’s language was “ableist.”
"Donald Trump’s ableist comments today say far more about him and his inaccurate, hateful biases against disabled people than it does about Vice President Harris, or any person with a disability,” she said in a statement.
“Trump holds the ableist, false belief that if a person has a disability, they are less human and less worthy of dignity. AAPD continues to call for the leadership of both parties in the 2024 election to condemn the use of ableist language like Trump used today.”
One study from the Council on Quality and Leadership found that “ableist language results in nondisabled people having more negative views of disabled people and having less tolerance for them.”
Town reminded people that multiple former presidents lived or are living with a disability. Franklin Delano Roosevelt survived polio and used a wheelchair. John F. Kennedy had Addison’s disease, ulcerative colitis and chronic pain. Ronald Reagan had a hearing impairment and President Joe Biden has a stutter.
“The presence or absence of disability alone is wholly insufficient to determine a person’s fitness to hold elected office,” Town added. The former president spent much of his hour-long rally on Saturday evening insulting Harris – a common occurrence in his recent speeches. He called her “incompetent” and “a bad person” and claimed her speech from the border on Friday evening was “bulls****.”
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said, “Donald Trump is finally telling the truth to voters: He’s got nothing ‘inspiring’ to offer the American people, just darkness. He has no plan to grow our economy, no vision to bring down costs, and no plan to fix the immigration system he broke. He sank the bipartisan border deal because he’s more interested in fanning the flames of hate and division than delivering real solutions for our country. The American people deserve better than Trump’s bleak, backward-looking Project 2025 agenda. This November, they’ll elect Vice President Harris for a new way forward.”
