With President Joe Biden's nomination still on shaky ground, Republicans at their party's national convention this week have sharpened their criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden's likeliest replacement on the ticket.
Harris was featured prominently in speeches over the first two days of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Speakers made sure to name her while criticizing the Biden administration's policies, and they sought to tie her to major election issues, including the border crisis — repeatedly referring to her as the "border czar" — and violent crime.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton on Tuesday accused Biden and Harris of welcoming a “Third World invasion” through the border.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley warned of “four more years of Biden or a single day of Harris” in her speech. She mischaracterized Harris' role in leading the administration’s effort to address the root causes of migration in 2021.
“Kamala had one job — one job — and that was to fix the border," Haley said. "Now imagine her in charge of the entire country?”
Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt claimed that Biden and Harris opened the border “to terrorists, to criminals.” He also pointed to violent crime during the pandemic, saying Harris “shares in those failures.” Violent crime surged in 2020 — when Donald Trump was still president — but it has steadily dropped in the following years.
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer also tried to link violent crime to Harris. “When Minneapolis was in flames and businesses were in ruins, Kamala Harris encouraged and enabled the criminals and the rioters,” he said, presumably referring to the 2020 racial justice protests.
The attacks on Harris at the RNC are part of a broader GOP strategy to cast the vice president as a bigger target ahead of the November election. Reporting has indicated that while the Trump campaign hopes Biden stays in the race, believing it is easier to defeat him than any other Democrat, it is homing in on its attacks on Harris in case the president bows out.
Trump himself has increasingly criticized Harris on the campaign trail in recent weeks, mispronouncing her first name and painting her as part of the “radical left.”