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“Everybody knows she’s a Marxist”: Trump attacks Kamala Harris’ intellectual upbringing

The former president claimed Harris was a "Marxist" during a discussion about unemployment

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US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a presidential debate with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a presidential debate with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump sparred during a heated discussion over economics and unemployment at the presidential debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, leading the former president to take a personal jab at his opponent's upbringing.

After accusing Harris of flipping positions to emulate certain Trump administration economic policies, the former president labeled her a "Marxist."

"Everything that she believed three years ago and four years ago is out the window," Trump alleged. "She's going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat. She's gone to my philosophy, but if she ever got elected, she'd change it. And it will be the end of our country. She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she’s a Marxist." The ex-president then cited Harris' father's academic background, saying, "Her father's a Marxist professor in economics."

Stanford University's newspaper called Donald J. Harris — a Jamaican-born economics professor — a "Marxist scholar" in 1976, in an article that cast a wary eye at university administration and their seeming fear of moving students away from neoclassical economics.

The communist digs at the vice president are a specter haunting Trump's campaign, and they would pass the smell test about as quickly as a corpse. Trump has repeatedly referred to Harris as "Commie" and "Comrade Kamala" in spite of her record and policy positions. As you might expect, the allegations haven't stuck.

By Gabriella Ferrigine

Gabriella Ferrigine is a former staff writer at Salon. Originally from the Jersey Shore, she moved to New York City in 2016 to attend Columbia University, where she received her B.A. in English and M.A. in American Studies. Formerly a staff writer at NowThis News, she has an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from NYU and was previously a news fellow at Salon.


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