Several Republicans have sought to distance themselves from “insulting” comments made by Donald Trump, in which he claimed Kamala Harris was “mentally disabled.”
Many have urged the former president to “stick to the issues” of his campaign, rather than reverting time and time again to personal attacks on Harris.
During a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump said Harris was “mentally disabled” and “mentally impaired.”
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala, was born that way,” Trump told the audience, who erupted into laughter. “She was born that way.
On Sunday, he doubled down on the “dark” comments, which have raised eyebrows within his own party, at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Perhaps the strongest rebuke came from former governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who is in a tight race for the Senate. “I think that’s insulting not only to the vice president, but to people that actually do have mental disabilities,” he said.
“Trump’s divisive rhetoric is something we can do without.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, also pushed back on the personal nature of Trump’s attack. “I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country,” Graham told CNN.
Graham added that while he did not think Harris was crazy, he did think her policies were.
Representative Tom Emmer — a Minnesota Republican who has been helping Trump’s running mate JD Vance get ready for his debate with Tim Walz, shared a similar sentiment. “I think we should stick to the issues,” he told ABC News.
The comments also drew criticism from advocacy group the American Association of People with Disabilities. Maria Town, the president and CEO of AAPD said Trump’s language was “ableist.”
“Donald Trump’s ableist comments today say far more about him and his inaccurate, hateful biases against disabled people than it does about Vice President Harris, or any person with a disability,” she said in a statement shared with The Independent.
“Trump holds the ableist, false belief that if a person has a disability, they are less human and less worthy of dignity. AAPD continues to call for the leadership of both parties in the 2024 election to condemn the use of ableist language like Trump used today [Saturday].”
Others recalled Trump’s previous, and similar, attacks on president Joe Biden’s cognitive ability.
“Trump made a great deal of the cognitive abilities of Joe Biden,” said Eric Holder, the former attorney general who served in the Obama administration. Referring to the former president’s own cognitive state, he added: “If this is where he is now, where is he going to be three and four years from now?”
While campaigning against Biden, Trump called multiple times for the president to take cognitive ability tests, while boasting that he had aced one in 2018.
At a rally in June Trump suggested Biden “should have to take a cognitive test,” only to confuse the doctor administered the test to him in the next sentence.
The former president went on to refer to Texas Republican Representative Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician for part of his presidency, as “Ronny Johnson.”