Trump mocks Kamala Harris' name but her campaign is putting it front and center
As Donald Trump pivots his focus to Vice President Kamala Harris, one point of attack toward his new 2024 opponent is an old ploy: mispronouncing and mocking her name.
Earlier this week, at his first rally since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Trump bungled Harris's name dozens of times in the span of his nearly 90-minute stump speech. He told his supporters he wasn't going to be "nice" anymore.
For years, Harris has been referred to by Trump, Republicans and conservative media like Fox News by only her first name rather than "vice president" or even "Harris" -- and they say it incorrectly.
"It's one thing to mispronounce someone's name on the first try, right? But to do it repeatedly and deliberately, it feels purposeful. It's certainly done to make a point. It is othering, a way of saying you don't belong here," said Jean Sinzdak, the associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
"I would describe it as a racist and sexist attack on her because she's been the vice president for three and a half years," Sinzdak said. "It's not hard to say her name. It's not complicated."
Her name is a nod to her Indian heritage on her mother's side and in her 2019 memoir, Harris wrote that she pronounced it "Comma-la" and that it means "lotus flower."
Before that, when she ran for Senate in 2016, her campaign produced a video with children noting all the incorrect ways of pronouncing her name before saying it correctly. The clip has resurfaced over the past weeks as her presidential campaign enters suddenly entered full swing.
Still, Trump continues to say "Kah-MAH-la."
When asked why, the Trump campaign, in a statement to ABC News, said "race and gender have nothing to do with why Kamala Harris is the most unpopular Vice President in history."
Karoline Leavitt, the campaign's national press secretary, went on to criticize Harris's handling of immigration and accused her of lying about Biden's cognitive abilities. "She is weak, dishonest, and dangerously liberal, and that’s why the American people will reject her on November 5th," Leavitt said.
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist, noted that over the years "Democrats, Republican, and even reporters, have mispronounced Kamala Harris' first name. It's a unique one."
"But Trump doesn't seem to care, and continues to do it as a demonstration of purposeful disregard for his opponent," he said.
As Harris faces some racial and sexist attacks, including that she was a "DEI hire," House Republican leaders privately told their conference to focus their attacks against Harris on her record, sources familiar with the conversation told ABC News.
But it seems unlikely Trump would follow such advice.
"Trump runs his own campaign and constructs his own message," Madden said. "For him, it always devolves into the personal, so I expect it will be an element of his attack message all the way though the course of his campaign."
Meanwhile, Harris appears to be flipping the script and leaning into the contrast of her name and identity versus Trump.
Her first campaign video featured images of supporters holding up "Kamala" signs and chanting "Kamala!" at one of her recent campaign rallies.
Her campaign's rapid response social media page is simply called, "Kamala HQ."
Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Hillary Clinton, said Harris and her team are "using her first name as a tool of empowerment."
"She owns it, it is hers and proudly," Cardona said. "The Trump-Vance MAGA folks try to use it to demean and degrade her. They think that by mispronouncing it, it strips her of her power, when in fact what they are doing only betrays just how terrified they are of her and everything she is bringing to this race."
Sinzdak agreed it was a smart strategy to turn the insult on its head.
"During the campaign cycle, when so much was made of the fact that the two candidates for the presidency were much older white men, it did not look like change or progress," Sinzdak said. "This is a moment for Kamala Harris and her campaign to lean into an identity that is different and bring something exciting to the ticket. A lot of voters will respond to that, especially younger voters and women voters."
Harris' campaign declined to comment on the name controversy.
Still, Sinzdak and Cardona said they expect these kinds of personal attacks on Harris to continue in the coming months leading up to Election Day.
Cardona warned she thinks "this will be one of the ugliest, most racist, most misogynist, sexist campaigns that we will ever see."
"But the other flip side of that is, I don't think that Trump will now how to maneuver with her in this race, with I think its a huge, huge opportunity for her."
ABC News' Soorin Kim, Rachel Scott and Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report
