Notable GOP figures highlighted Harris’s conflicting marijuana history as a California prosecutor and member of the U.S. Senate.
California Sen. Kamala Harris is officially Joe Biden’s running mate, making her the first Black and South Asian American woman to make a major party’s presidential ticket. The announcement was made yesterday, and the selection has already drawn criticism from notable GOP members, including President Donald Trump, who targeted Harris’s cannabis history.
Trump first called Harris “nastier than Pocahontas,” a dig at his rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed Cherokee Native American ancestry in the past. The President later labeled Harris “the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.”
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Trump was also asked about past comments by Harris about smoking marijuana listening to Snoop Dogg and Tupac, which some thought conflicted with her history pursuing cannabis prosecutions as California’s Attorney General.
“She lied, she said things that were untrue,” Trump said, although the President declined to comment on her cannabis policies.
In a Fox News interview, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway suggested that Harris will have to answer for her prosecutorial record.
“I think as attorney general in California, the position that Kamala Harris has held much longer than she’s been a United States senator, people will dig into that record,” she told Fox. “It looks like she left nobody happy.”
“She is seen by those on the far left, many speaking up last night, as not sufficiently for criminal justice reform,” Conway added. “She locked up over 1,500 people or so on marijuana charges, and by others who are for public safety and law and order, she is seen as somebody who is soft on some of those criminals. And so, I think she has a very mixed record there that people will dig into.”
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Newsmax TV also brought up this issue while discussing Biden’s VP pick. Newsmax, conservative cable news station, had former Nevada GOP chairwoman Amy Tarkanian on the program where she reiterated Conway’s views.
“The fact [is] Kamala Harris has such a terrible prosecutorial history in areas where she incarcerated many folks who were actually black due to minor infractions and smoking marijuana even though she smoked it herself,” Tarkanian said.
“The list goes on and on and on,” she added.
“The fact that Kamala Harris has such a terrible prosecutorial history where she incarcerated many folks who were actually black due to minor infractions & smoking marijuana even though she smoked it herself,” @MrsT106 tells Newsmax TV.
"The list goes on." pic.twitter.com/f3x0PyGqw2
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 12, 2020
These comments came hours after Biden selected Harris as his running mate. Harris also ran in the Democrat primary as a presidential candidate, but dropped out before any votes were cast in Iowa or New Hampshire.
