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Donald Trump has claimed that Kamala Harris would be treated as a “play toy” by world leaders because of “how she looks” in the latest misogynistic comments to emerge from his camp.
The former president told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview, part of which aired on Tuesday night, that the vice-president’s appearance means other leaders will “walk all over her”.
“She’ll be like a play toy,” he said. “They look at her and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’ They’re going to walk all over her.”
Trump wouldn’t spell out what exactly he meant, adding: “And I don’t want to say as to why. But a lot of people understand it.”
His comments sparked outrage from social media users, with one person calling them “very gross” and a “weird way to talk about Vice-President Kamala Harris.”
“Wow, vailed sexism and racism because he has absolutely nothing else to use against a better qualified candidate,” another person chimed in.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign later denied that he was referring to Harris’ gender or race, instead slamming the Democratic presidential candidate as “weak, dishonest and dangerously liberal” in a statement to The Washington Post.
But this marks only the latest in a growing list of sexist or racist attacks against Harris – attacks that have significantly ramped up in the days since President Joe Biden stepped down from the 2024 race and Harris stepped up to top the ticket.
Over the last week, Republicans have baselessly branded Harris a “DEI hire” while Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance faced a backlash after his sexist comments branding Harris and other women “childless cat ladies” resurfaced last week.
In a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Vance said that the US is run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
“Look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he continued.
“How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
Several public figures, including Friends star Jennifer Aniston as well as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s first wife, have slammed Vance for the misogynistic comments.
Vance and Trump, meanwhile, have been in damage control, both trying to brush off the comments by claiming the Ohio senator is simply family focused.
When Ingraham asked the former president what he thinks women who haven’t had children might think of his running mate’s comments, he claimed: “I think they understand it.”
It’s also far from the first time Trump has made sexist and derogatory comments about his female political rivals – and he has long been criticized for his treatment of women.
During his 2016 campaign, the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape emerged revealing Trump bragging about grabbing women “by the p****”.
Then last year, the former president was found liable for sexually assaulting writer E Jean Carroll in a dressing room in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. He continues to attack her despite being ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages for defamation.
And this May, when the former president was convicted of 34 felonies, the charges related to a hush money payment to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels over a sexual encounter when he was married to Melania Trump. Again, Trump has leveled repeated derogatory attacks against Daniels, subjecting her to threats from his base.
