Former President Trump in an interview broadcast late Sunday slammed Vice President Harris as “vicious” and claimed her treatment of former Vice President Mike Pence during a debate was “horrible.”
Trump, speaking on Fox News’s “Life, Liberty and Levin,” pointed to the viral moment during the 2020 vice presidential debate when Harris rebuked Pence’s interruption with the phrase, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”
“Now they have Kamala, who they say has many deficiencies, but she’s a nasty person. The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible,” Trump said on Fox News.
Trump and Pence’s relationship grew increasingly tense toward the end of their White House term. It came to a head in early 2021 when Pence refused to overturn the 2020 election results despite pressure from Trump and his allies.
Rioters at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection were chanting “hang Mike Pence” for his refusal to question the election results.
In a later interview, Trump said he was not worried about Pence’s safety because he believed he was “well-protected” and “in good shape.” A New York Times report came out in 2022 claiming Trump made an approving remark on Jan. 6 about his vice president being hanged, though his spokesperson alleged the story was part of a larger “Democrat smear campaign.”
Pence also lodged an unsuccessful presidential bid to challenge Trump for this year’s GOP nomination, emerging as an outspoken critic.
“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” he said in March, months after dropping out of the Republican primary.
Trump during the Fox News interview also criticized Harris for her questioning of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearings.
“Oh, she was vicious. Oh, she was the most vicious. She was going after them [Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch]” Trump said, adding later, “The way she treated Justice Kavanaugh during that hearing in the history of Congress, nobody’s been treated that way.”
Harris, who was serving as a senator on the Judiciary Committee at the time, made headlines in 2018 for her grilling of Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
The tense moment between Harris, a former prosecutor, and Kavanaugh unfolded when she asked him whether he discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation with anyone from a law firm founded by Trump’s personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz. Kavanaugh dodged the question in his response.
Trump’s recent comments echo those made on the campaign trail in 2020, when he also slammed Harris as “horrible” and “nasty” for her line of questioning of Kavanaugh, his appointee.
The Hill reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
Trump has repeatedly waged personal attacks against Harris, especially after she replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and became the party’s official presidential nominee last month.
Some Republicans have even suggested Trump stay away from the personal insults and focus on policy.
Since replacing Biden atop the Democratic Party’s ticket, Harris quickly consolidated support, threatening the healthy lead Trump held over Biden when the president was in the race. According to a polling index by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ, Harris has a 3.8-point national lead over Trump.