Indian American Democratic VP nominee says ready to face dirty tactics.
Kamala Harris has alleged that President Donald Trump will “engage in lies” and “deception” to discredit her as he had done with former President Barack Obama by raising the debunked birther issue.
The Indian American Democratic vice presidential nominee hit back after Trump re-floated the old birther conspiracy last week about her eligibility to serve as vice president and president.
“They’re going to engage in an attempt to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people. And I expect that they will engage in dirty tactics,” Harris told media outlet TheGrio in an interview released Sunday.
“And this is going to be a knockdown, drag-out. And we’re ready,” she said when asked how Trump promoting birther conspiracies signals the tactics his campaign will use.
On Saturday, Trump, who has pushed similar conspiracies about Obama, said that he would not be “pursuing” questions about Harris’ eligibility, but did not dismiss the conspiracy theories as false.
“I know nothing about it, but it’s not something that bothers me,” the President said during a news conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. “I just don’t know about it but it’s not something we will be pursuing.”
RELATED: Indian Americans welcome Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s VP pick (August 12, 2020)
On Thursday Trump said he heard on “social media” that Harris could be ineligible citing John Eastman, a Chapman University professor who raised the issue in a Newsweek op-ed.
Eastman questioned her eligibility because she was born to Jamaican and Indian immigrant parents — despite the fact that she’s a natural born citizen.
Newsweek editors have since apologized, writing, “This op-Ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize.” They said they are keeping it online for transparency.
During the Democratic presidential primary too, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted then deleted a critic who said, “Kamala Harris is ‘not’ an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaica.”
Harris told TheGrio, “I’m very clear-eyed about the fact that they are going to engage, as you said, in what they have done throughout his administration, which is, let’s just be very candid and straightforward: They’re going to engage in lies. They’re going to engage in deception.â€
“Nothing that we have ever achieved that has been about progress has come without a fight,” she added.
“There’s no question that we need immediate change and drastic change and that’s so much of what the Biden-Harris platform and what the Biden-Harris administration will be about,” Harris said.
“It’s about saying, we need to immediately address a number of issues that demand priority and immediate attention.”
“And that relates to getting people back to work. It means investing in infrastructure and creating millions of new jobs. It means fighting for healthcare for all people.”
Harris also defended her criminal justice record as a prosecutor to TheGrio saying, “we can’t only be on the outside of these systems that we need to change. It also requires that we go inside.”
Harris added that she is proud of the work she accomplished as California’s attorney general.
She told Essence that Biden administration would work to do more for criminal justice reform.
“I have seen too many cases of not only unarmed Black folks being killed, but women,” she said, adding, “And we need to speak their name and understand that we have to have justice.”
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