Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said former President Trump’s continued attacks on Vice President Harris’s intelligence are a “sign of his racism.”
“I just want to say this, he called the Vice President dumb at least four times today, and that is a sign of his racism,” Scaramucci told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Thursday of the former president’s press conference that day.
Scaramucci, who briefly worked in the Trump administration, said Harris is qualified and disregarded Trump’s attacks of his general election opponent.
“She’s an incredibly qualified person,” Scaramucci said. “If you look at her credentials and you look at who she is as a human being, it is absolutely absurd that he’s calling her that. And people need to call him on that and hand check him on something like that.”
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump delivered remarks Thursday afternoon, during which he appeared to be irritated by Harris’s rise in polls and the enthusiasm generated by voters for her campaign after President Biden bowed out of the race.
When Trump was asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, he began talking about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 “I Have A Dream” speech.
The former president said the crowd that gathered for his speech on Jan. 6 prior to the insurrection was larger than King’s civil rights address. The size of the crowd at Trump's speech was put at roughly 53,000 by the House's Jan. 6 committee, while King's address was attended by an estimated 250,000.
Trump's remarks during the press conference mark the latest instance of race-related comments from the former president to draw criticism amid his campaign.
After Harris became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Trump said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention that Harris previously campaigned on her Indian heritage, but she recently has leaned into her Black heritage because she “happened to turn Black.”
Harris is of both Black and South Asian descent.
Scaramucci argued Trump is flailing for support. The former president's comments, which drew fierce blowback, risk losing more Black voters. Polls show Harris is gaining ground with Black voters.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Hill that "for anyone like Anthony to link intelligence to racism is racist from Anthony in of itself."
