Former President Donald Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris “lazy” and questioned her intelligence at a campaign event in Miami on Tuesday, perpetuating a long-used racist trope against Black people.
“I was going to hit her really hard on the trail today, but now I don’t have to, because she’s off,” Trump said to a crowd of majority Latino voters. He then said the vice president was “lazy as hell” for not holding a campaign event, despite her spending the day in Washington taking meetings and recording media interviews. Tuesday was Harris’ first day off from a public event after 14 consecutive days of media interviews and campaign rallies across multiple states.
Trump then called the Democratic nominee “slow” and claimed she had a “low IQ." At a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, later in the day, he questioned whether Harris, who is Black and of South Asian descent, struggled with substance abuse.
Laziness has long been a racist stereotype used to describe Black people and suggest ineptitude. “Laziness, as well as characteristics of submissiveness, backwardness, lewdness, treachery, and dishonesty, historically became stereotypes assigned to African Americans,” the National Museum of African American History and Culture explains.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris’ qualifications as a presidential candidate, suggesting that she was chosen as the Democratic nominee only because of her race and gender.
“She’s running because they want to be politically correct,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Though the 78-year-old has a long history of racist and bigoted remarks, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that the Republican nominee’s comments have nothing to do with race. “It’s simply because she has no respect for the American people and takes voters for granted,” he claimed.
