Lindsey Graham says if Trump wants to win, he should change his line of attack on Kamala Harris
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images, Spencer Platt/Getty Images
- Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump should change tack with his attacks on Harris if he wants to win.
- Graham said Trump should slam Harris for her "judgment" and track record.
- Graham said his problem with Harris is her judgement, not her heritage.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has a suggestion for his longtime ally, former President Donald Trump: Switch up your line of attack if you want to win the election.
Ever since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Trump has unleashed a barrage of gender- and race-driven comments on her.
Now, Graham has weighed in on the race-based discourse surrounding Harris and her campaign.
"So, here's what I would say to President Trump. The problem I have with Kamala Harris is not her heritage, it's her judgment," Graham said in a Fox News Sunday interview.
"Every day, we're talking about her heritage and not her terrible, dangerous liberal record throughout her entire political life," Graham added. He did not specify what parts of her record he was referring to.
"So, I would encourage President Trump to prosecute the case against Kamala Harris' bad judgment," he said. "This is your election to lose. It's important to win."
Harris, who is Black and South Asian, has endured a slew of race- and gender-driven attacks from across the GOP since President Joe Biden endorsed her for the top ticket.
At a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists conference on Wednesday, Trump floated false claims about her ethnicity — which Harris rebuffed while speaking at a rally in Houston on the same day.
"It was the same old show," she said about his comments at the NABJ conference. "The divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better."
Political experts told BI that it's not a surprise Trump and the GOP would launch these racist and personal attacks. They also said they expect it to worsen as the elections draw close.
"America has a deep history of attacks being on the basis of race, so it is not unexpected," Thomas Hollihan, a professor of communication at USC Annenberg, told BI in July.
Representatives for Trump, Graham, and Harris did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.