Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto fact-checked the Trump campaign’s assertion that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) called presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a racist, noting that she “never did.”
Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson made the claim in a statement released on social media while responding to Biden’s decision to select Harris as his running mate.
“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received,” Pierson asserted.
Pierson was referring to a June 2019 primary debate that included Harris going after Biden on the issue of school busing.
Harris made a point of saying during the debate that she didn’t think the former vice president was a racist while criticizing his past views, but received blowback from some critics who argued she mischaracterized Biden’s stance while portraying him in a racially insensitive light.
“As a former prosecutor, if anything, Kamala Harris was getting heat from many African Americans of the party and others because she was a little too tough on crime and that sort of thing,” White House correspondent John Roberts said in a report on Cavuto’s program.
“So they’re painting her as way left” of others in the Democratic Party, Roberts later added. “But that’s the way that Trump is going to fight this campaign.”
“By the way, the quick clarification I want to get,” Cavuto said. “The president seems to be saying that Kamala Harris had called Joe Biden a racist. She never did.”
“No,” Roberts concurred, noting that Pierson had issued the statement on behalf of the president and his campaign.
“But clearly, in that confrontation in the debate, it was an uncomfortable moment. She did demand an apology. Whether she said the word racist or not, the intonation was there,” he added of Harris.
Harris had asked for an apology from Biden after the 2019 debate and later said she did not receive one.
“He has yet to agree that his position on this, which was to work with segregationists and oppose busing, was wrong. Period,” Harris said at the time.