Trump struggles to find line of attack against Harris: ‘They are literally grasping at straws’

As Republicans rev up their anti-Kamala Harris campaign, they’re having a hard time finding a consistent line of attack.

In recent days, Republicans have slammed the vice president for everything from her handling of immigration and her past as a prosecutor to her “terrible,” “horrible” and “mean” demeanor. On Wednesday, Donald Trump called Harris a “radical, left lunatic,” then branded her “nasty” in a Fox News interview the following day — an echo of insults Trump leveled against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Trump’s allies, meanwhile, have argued she is actively engaged in a conspiracy to hide Biden’s apparent decline or that she’s just another Biden altogether. Some have engaged in explicitly racist and sexist attacks, calling her a “DEI hire” or bashing her for not having biological children. Others say she laughs too much. More criticized her for endorsing consumer policies such as bans on plastic straws and eating red meat. And none of her rivals seem willing to correctly pronounce her name.

“They are literally grasping at straws,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party. “Republicans desperately wanted to run against Joe Biden. … The introduction of Harris into the race, I think, has upended their attacks and their strategies.”

The breadth and lack of cohesion in the Republican assault on Harris reflects the newness of her candidacy — but also the difficulty GOPers are having adjusting to a contender who cuts a different profile than the 81-year-old, white, male incumbent they’d been planning a run against for years.

On the day Biden bowed out and Harris announced her campaign, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley suggested on Fox News that the change would not alter Republicans’ broader messaging.

“We are not going to be changing our plans because President Trump is going to run his race, and whether it is Kamala Harris or anyone else, they are going to run on the exact same failed agenda that Joe Biden has been running over the last four years,” he said.

But once Harris got in, Republicans were all over the map. Just hours after she announced her candidacy, Trump’s super PAC released an ad attacking Harris, claiming she “covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline” and that she “knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it” herself. (The White House has disputed reports that aides insulated Biden to hide signs of decline.)

Then, the attacks pivoted to Harris’ identity.

A 2021 clip of Trump’s now-running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) calling Harris and other Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too” began recirculating on social media. (One of Harris’ two step-children, Ella Emhoff, responded Thursday on Instagram, writing: “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like cole and I