South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been close to Donald Trump throughout his presidency and since, has offered him some pointers on how best to take on Vice President Kamala Harris. The senior South Carolina senator, in noting that the race is a virtual dead heat now that President Joe Biden has decided to end his reelection bid and anoint Harris as his successor, said Trump should stop focusing on Harris’ bi-racial ethnicity and hit her on her lack of accomplishments.
“The problem I have with Kamala Harris is not her heritage, it’s her judgment,” he told Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream. “She has been wrong about everything. When she tried to explain what she would do about inflation and an upcoming recession, it made no sense. It’s gibberish.” Graham was responding to the media-generated ‘controversy’ regarding Trump’s comments last week at a National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, in which he noted that Harris touts her Jamaican and Indian heritage alternately depending on the intended audience, for political gain.
Graham, after citing the diversity of his home state, continued to advise Trump to avoid distractions regarding Harris’ identity. “Every day we’re talking about her heritage and not her terrible, dangerous liberal record throughout her entire political life. It’s a good day for her and a bad day for us,” Graham said. “So, I would encourage President Trump to prosecute the case against Kamala Harris’ bad judgment.”
Graham added that Trump’s first term was “an incredible presidency for national security,” and rather than getting distracted, he should talk about issues that are his strongest and Harris’ weakest. “It’s important you win to reset a broken border and get the world in good order,” he said. “The American people are looking to have their problems solved.”
At the conference, the very first question to Trump was about his attacks on black journalists and lawmakers, as if they are supposed to be off-limited to criticism because of their skin color. Trump responded: “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black.
“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black? And you know what, I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a black person. I think somebody should look into that,” he added.
As Harris prepares to accept the Democratic nomination later this month, a raft of bad economic news will likely temper some enthusiasm for her candidacy as one-half of the “Biden-Harris administration.” According to Friday reports, U.S. job growth slowed significantly in July, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed to its highest level in nearly three years.
The Labor Department reported on Friday that employers added 114,000 jobs in July, falling well short of the 175,000 gain predicted by LSEG economists. The unemployment rate also unexpectedly rose to 4.3%, up from the anticipated 4.1%, marking its highest level since October 2021. “Temperatures might be hot around the country, but there’s no summer heatwave for the job market,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of ManPowerGroup North America. “With across-the-board cooling, we have lost most of the gains we saw from the first quarter of the year.”
Fox Business added:
Friday’s report adds to mounting evidence that the economy is weakening in the face of ongoing inflation and high interest rates. Stock futures plunged as the report reignited fears of an impending recession, with Dow futures shedding more than 500 points.
That’s because the rise in unemployment triggered the so-called Sahm Rule, an indicator that is used to provide an early recession signal. The rule stipulates that a recession is likely when the three-month moving average of the jobless rate is at least a half-percentage point higher than the 12-month low.
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