Former President Donald Trump called rival Kamala Harris a "s--- vice president" during a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening, punctuating his broader argument that she is too liberal in a more aggressive fashion and with fresh vulgarity.
"Bernie is radical left, and this one, Kamala, is further left," Trump told the crowd at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport. "And then, so you have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore. We can’t stand you. You’re a s--- vice president."
Trump added the catchphrase from his bygone television show "The Apprentice" to cheers: "Kamala, you're fired," he said. "Get the hell out of here."
Trump told the crowd that profanity helps him put emphasis on his arguments, but the more pointed attack also underscores a recent heightening of personal invective in a tight race that is in its final weeks. Trump regularly insults Harris' intelligence, referring to her as "not a smart person" or having a "low IQ." At a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, he called her a "horrible person" and said he didn't want to be nice.
Harris, campaigning in Atlanta on Saturday, ripped Trump for meandering in his public remarks. "He tends to go off script and ramble and generally for the life of him cannot finish a thought," she said. "And he has called it the weave. But I think we here call it nonsense."
Earlier in the day, in Detroit, Harris expounded on her case that Trump is not fit for the presidency.
"He’s becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged," she said. "The American people are seeing it, witnessing it in real time. The American people deserve better than someone who seems to be unstable.”
Trump spent 12 minutes at the beginning of his roughly 90-minute speech telling stories about Palmer, the late professional golfer for whom the airport was named. At one point, he suggested that Palmer had unusually large genitalia.
"He was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there they said, 'Oh, my God. That’s unbelievable,'" Trump said.
The Harris campaign quickly pounced on the anecdote. One Harris campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, suggested that someone should do a "wellness check" on the former president, while another, Matt Corridoni, posted on X that Trump was "Having a totally normal one." In a statement, her campaign sarcastically chided Trump for focusing on "the issue most important to voters in this election: a deceased golfer’s … anatomy."
An NBC News poll earlier this month showed Harris and Trump tied at 48% apiece nationally, while state polls in Pennsylvania and other battlegrounds have consistently placed them within the margin of error of each other.
Harris portrayed Trump Saturday as too tired for the job they both seek, a partisan reversal of Republican claims that President Joe Biden is incapacitated. Trump, for his part, called Biden "mentally deficient" Saturday.
Biden dropped out of the race this summer and helped Harris lock down the Democratic nomination with his endorsement after he stumbled badly in a debate against Trump.
"Now he's ducking debates and canceling interviews because of exhaustion," Harris said. Trump canceled an interview with NBC News’ senior business correspondent Christine Romans that was scheduled to tape on Monday; his campaign said it would reschedule but had not yet done so.
He also backed down from a CNBC interview and a planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event in recent days.
On Friday, during an exchange with reporters in Michigan, Harris took a cleaner swing at Trump over his energy level.
“Being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world,” Harris said. “And so, we really do need to ask if he’s exhausted being on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?”
