Donald Trump, while maintaining a virtually nonexistent campaign schedule this week, has introduced a baffling new insult for his presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris: “Kamabla.”
The insult first appeared Monday evening in two posts on his social media platform, where Trump attacked Harris and President Joe Biden over high grocery and energy prices. “Kamabla Harris is afraid to Debate me on FoxNews. She will be easier to defeat on the Debate Stage than Crooked Joe Biden, just watch!” Trump wrote just after midnight Tuesday. Hours later, he followed with another post targeting his usual Democratic adversaries.
“What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE,” Trump wrote, told The Hill.
Trump’s top campaign aides, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, did not respond to HuffPost inquiries about the new insult. Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesperson, responded to HuffPost’s questions with a single word: “Kamabla.”
The meaning behind the insult is unclear, though some suggest it may be an attempt to make Harris, a native of Oakland, California, seem more foreign. Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House communications director under Trump, commented, “Trump can’t wrap his head around how to attack Kamala Harris so he’s leaned into his greatest hits: insults, name-calling, misogyny and racism. She’s truly confounded him.”
Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika added, “Convicted felon Donald Trump is spiraling and scrambling because he clearly has no idea how to run against a former prosecutor.”
Despite previously complaining during his Manhattan hush money trial about not being able to campaign due to his court schedule, Trump has chosen to keep a low campaign profile this week. His only public event is a Friday visit to Montana, which is not expected to be a swing state in November. “It’s bizarre,” Farah Griffin said. “It truly feels like Trump is phoning in this election. The nicknames are lazy and ineffective, and this week he isn’t traveling to a single battleground state.”
Trump’s history of racism extends decades. In 1975, he and his father settled a Department of Justice probe into their real estate business’s refusal to rent to Black applicants. In 1989, Trump called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino youths wrongfully accused of rape. He continued his attacks on them even after their exoneration. In 2011, Trump was the leading voice of the birther conspiracy, falsely claiming President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump claimed that most illegal immigrants were “rapists” and “drug dealers.” As president, he referred to certain countries as “shithole” nations and questioned Kamala Harris’s racial identity, despite her consistently acknowledging her Indian and Jamaican heritage.
Jennifer Horn, former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party, stated, “Trump’s insults are always offensive. In the case of Kamala Harris, his racism and misogyny are out of control. In fact, since Harris has become the nominee, his racism and misogyny have become primary message points.”
Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, criticized the focus on Trump’s new insult. “It’s BS. It means nothing. He knows what he’s doing, and the press is always trying to make it more than it is,” Steele said. “He’s a disrespectful, insecure 78-year-old man acting like a petulant 10-year-old bully.”