Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats are using a new line of attack against Republicans. They are calling Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, “weird.”
Why does Donald Trump seem so afraid to debate Vice President Harris? Here are a few potential reasons: pic.twitter.com/DRYnqKf9OT
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 27, 2024
Democrats are using the label in interviews and online.
This sums up my feelings about Trump, Vance and the whole MAGA movement—they're just weird. Their ideas are weird, and the things they say are weird.https://t.co/gz63ib7uSQ
— Ben Parr (@benparr) July 27, 2024
Vice President Harris in Massachusetts:
"You may have noticed Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record, and some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. [Laughter] I mean, that's the box you put that in, right?"
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 27, 2024
They point to Vance’s comments on abortion and his statement that political leaders who did not have biological children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country. “I don’t know who came up with the message, but I salute them,” said David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University. He noted that calling Republican comments “weird” frustrates opponents and leads them to further spread the message through off-balance responses.
In a recent CNN interview, Minnesota Gov.
Reminder here that the chorus of Dem leaders calling out Trump and Vance for being so weird are following the lead of their leader, @KamalaHarris, who first used the term re: Trump with regard to Trump weirdly stalking Hillary on stage during a debate. https://t.co/8JYQ3b28cd
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 28, 2024
Tim Walz, a Democrat, called Trump and Vance “just weird.” Walz mentioned Trump’s repeated references to the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in his speeches. The Harris campaign issued a news release with the subject line “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance,” which included the line “Trump is old and quite weird.”
Sens.
Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Harris’ allies, commented on X (formerly Twitter) calling Vance’s past comments about limiting the political power of childless Americans “a super weird idea.
At her first fundraiser as the likely Democratic nominee, Harris herself called some of Trump’s statements “just plain weird.”
Many of the Democrats’ comments seem to reference a 2021 interview in which Vance criticized Democrats without biological children, including Harris, as having “no direct stake” in America. Harris’s own use of “weird” to describe Trump may go back even further. In his 2021 book, political reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote that Harris reportedly gathered with aides in 2018 to prepare for her own presidential bid and joked about calling Trump “weird” on a debate stage.
Democrats adopt ‘weird’ attack strategy
Trump’s campaign has tried to turn the tables. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung posted a video of Walz calling Trump and Vance “weird” as he campaigned for Harris and tried to paint the Harris camp as out of line.
Donald Trump Jr. and other allies have attempted to shift the focus to Harris and what they call her failed policy ideas. “You know what’s really weird?
Soft on crime politicians like Kamala allowing illegal aliens out of prison so they can violently assault Americans,” Trump Jr. posted. Vance also commented on Harris’ “climate anxiety” remarks, framing them as discouraging young people from starting families and calling it “really weird stuff.”
By calling Republicans “weird,” Democrats may be adopting Republican attack lines to support Harris.
Republicans have long shared clips of Harris’ laugh and jokes to portray the vice president as weird. Labeling Republicans as “weird” could be a way for Democrats to take Republicans’ previous tactics and use them themselves, suggested Matt Sienkiewicz, a communication professor at Boston College. Political communication professor Jacob Neiheisel compared the “weird” message to Arizona Sen.
John McCain’s 2008 attempt to negatively portray Barack Obama.
