COMMENTARY

"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

By Gabriella Ferrigine

Staff Writer

Published September 10, 2024 10:19PM (EDT)

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.