Donald Trump heaped abuse on Kamala Harris as the Republican retreated further from his vow to restore political civility after surviving an assassination bid.
After Joe Biden bowed out of November’s election and endorsed his vice president to pick up the Democratic standard, Mr Trump said the “crooked” president should quit the White House entirely.
But he also coined a derisive nickname for his likely new opponent, “Laffin’ Kamala Harris”, and called her “crazy”, “nuts” and “pathetic”.
The VP’s defining characteristic to most US voters is probably her enthusiastic laugh.
Mr Trump’s fondness for insults was also on display when he accepted the Republican nomination last week days after he was shot in the ear at an open-air rally in Pennsylvania, which prompted a short-lived promise to work for unity.
But his campaign chiefs also focussed on the policy outlines of the redrawn election as they released attack ads seeking to tie Ms Harris to Mr Biden’s unpopular record on the economy and immigration.
“They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two,” they said, arguing that Ms Harris “will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden”.
Republicans were also alleging that the VP was at the heart of a coverup to hide Mr Biden’s deteriorating health from voters, after she continued to back him until the last despite his increasingly shaky public appearances.
And her past life in California was also under the spotlight, as a district attorney and attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2016, with Republicans picking over her cases in a bid to unearth political dirt.
Ms Harris’s own mis-steps when she unsuccessfully ran against Mr Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020 offered another seam, after a campaign riven by infighting when she failed to settle on any one message.
While the VP was due to appear at a White House event later on Monday, Mr Trump’s new running mate JD Vance was meanwhile set to make his first solo appearance on the campaign trail at a rally in his home town of Middletown, Ohio.
“President Trump and I are ready to save America, whoever’s at the top of the Democrat ticket,” the Ohio Senator said. “Bring it on.”
