As Donald Trump escalated his baseless attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris’s mental fitness on Sunday, his fellow Republicans cringed, and a growing list endorsed the Democratic Presidential candidate, citing the need to “put country over party.”
Rather than focusing on policy, as his political supporters would like, the Republican Presidential candidate continued to bash Harris’s supposed inadequacies, calling her “mentally impaired” and saying she should be “impeached and prosecuted,” especially for her stance on immigration.
Trump leveled the charges in a Wisconsin rally speech on Saturday that he later quasi-walked back as being “dark,” then doubled down on them a day later in Erie, Pennsylvania.
He held Harris responsible for an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border, even though by his own admission he had been the one to pressure congressional Republicans to quash a bipartisan bill that would have gone a long way toward fixing the problems.
Trump also seems to favor prosecuting his political rivals, and has vowed to conduct a mass deportation the minute he takes office if elected. Those still supporting him said he did not have to resort to personal insults to gain traction.
“I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday in answer to a question about Trump’s comments. “They’re crazy liberal.”
Other Republican reactions to the continued onslaught and other stances ranged from echoing the wish that he’d focus on policy, to outright endorsements of his Democratic rival.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., did not answer a question about Trump’s attacks on ABC’s “This Week” but instead did what the GOP is urging Trump to do, and addressed policy.
“I think Kamala Harris is the wrong choice for America,” said Emmer, who is helping Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance prepare for Tuesday’s debate with Democrat Tim Walz. “I think Kamala Harris is actually as bad or worse as the administration that we’ve witnessed for the last four years.”
On “Face the Nation,” former Maryland Gov. and moderate Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan said Trump should lay off harping on Harris’s racial identity. The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants has never played down her Black heritage as Trump has implied. Hogan called the remarks “outrageous and unacceptable,” according to USA Today.
“I’ve already called him out when he had the one interview where he was questioning her racial identity, and now he’s questioning her mental competence,” Hogan said. “And I think that’s insulting not only to the vice president but to people who actually do have mental disabilities.”
A growing list of Republicans continued to put country over party and endorse Harris. The latest to join them was former Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake who took his stand on X on Sunday because of, not despite, his staunchly conservative values.
“I’m a conservative. I believe in the rule of law,” he told the Arizona Republic. “First and foremost, I want to support a presidential candidate that respects the rule of law, somebody who, if they lose an election, wouldn’t try to use the presidential powers to overturn that election.”