CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump referred to as Vice President Kamala Harris “retarded” whereas making an attempt to persuade high Republican donors to pour more cash in his marketing campaign, The New York Instances reported Saturday.
In accordance with the Instances, the previous president’s offensive comment got here throughout a dinner with donors at his penthouse house final month. Among the many donors current had been Trump’s former schooling secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, together with hedge fund supervisor Paul Singer, funding banker Warren Stephens and billionaire Joe Ricketts.
To the group of rich donors, Trump argued that his administration’s tax coverage was favorable to them and that they need to be grateful and assist his marketing campaign extra, based on the Instances.
Sources informed the Instances that Trump was pissed off with fundraising numbers as Harris continues to herald more money than his marketing campaign.
“If cash assured electoral success, Hillary Clinton would have been president,” Trump’s marketing campaign stated Saturday in an announcement to CNN.
“President Trump is in a greater monetary place than ever earlier than, and he’s main within the polls,” marketing campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt added.
Trump’s exasperation comes within the ultimate stretch of the marketing campaign, because the race to the White Home stays exceedingly tight. Researchers at OpenSecret, a nonpartisan group that tracks cash in elections, famous in a report this week that at this price, Trump might wrestle even to match what his political operation raised throughout the 2020 marketing campaign.
In the meantime, Harris has raised $1 billion since coming into the race in late July, CNN reported earlier this week. Whereas different presidential candidates — alongside their political events — have exceeded the $1 billion mark in previous elections, Harris crossed that threshold at a breakneck tempo.
Trump has typically made disparaging remarks about his opponents, together with President Joe Biden when he was nonetheless within the race. Late final month, Trump publicly insulted Harris’ psychological state at a marketing campaign rally in Pennsylvania, calling her “mentally impaired.”
For Harris’ half, throughout her first presidential marketing campaign in 2019, Harris got here beneath fireplace for responding, “Properly stated,” to a prolonged query from a voter who had referred to as Trump’s actions “mentally retarded.”
Harris on the time posted an apology from her presidential marketing campaign account on X, then referred to as Twitter, and whereas she stated she didn’t hear the time period, she stated, “That phrase and others prefer it aren’t acceptable. Ever.”
Finally month’s dinner, Trump additionally repeated his latest assaults on Jewish voters who don’t assist him, as soon as once more saying, “they wanted their heads examined,” based on the Instances.
Trump has used the identical phrase a number of instances on the marketing campaign path to argue that Jewish voters would bear some blame if he loses in November.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten and Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed to this report.
