Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally inside the Mosack Group manufacturing warehouse in Mint Hill, North Carolina, last week. (Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/The Charlotte Observer/TNS)
Disability advocates and members of both political parties are criticizing former President Donald Trump after he described Vice President Kamala Harris as “mentally disabled” and “mentally disabled.”
Trump made the comments at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday and reiterated the personal attacks while campaigning in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
“Joe Biden was left mentally disabled,” the former president said. “Kamala was born that way.”
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“If you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen in our country,” Trump continued, in an effort to link Harris to the current administration’s border policies.
Maria Town, president and CEO of the nonpartisan American Association of People with Disabilities, criticized Trump’s rhetoric for perpetuating stereotypes and disparaging the millions of voters with disabilities.
“Trump holds the false and ableist belief that if a person has a disability, they are less human and less worthy of dignity. These perceptions are incorrect and harmful to people with disabilities,” Town said, noting that many former presidents, dating back to George Washington, have had disabilities.
“To be clear, the insult in Donald Trump’s comment is not the suggestion that Vice President Harris is disabled, but rather the insinuation that having a disability is synonymous with poor performance as a potential president,” he said.
His fellow Republicans quickly tried to distance themselves from Trump’s comments.
“I think that’s an insult not only to the vice president, but to people who really have mental disabilities,” Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland who is running for the Senate, told CBS.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during an appearance on CNN that Trump should take a different approach.
“I just think the best path forward is to prosecute the case that his policies are destroying the country,” Graham said.
Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said Trump resorts to name-calling because he has nothing good to offer ordinary people.
“I think every time he says things like that, he’s talking about himself but trying to project it onto others,” Pritzker said.
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