Emhoff defends Harris against Trump: ‘That’s all he’s got?’

A day after former President Donald Trump derided Vice President Kamala Harris as “dumb as a rock,” Harris’ husband defended her: “That’s all he’s got?”

“You heard the vice president yesterday making the case against Donald Trump very clearly,” second gentleman Doug Emhoff said Tuesday. “But she also laid out a vision for the future, a vision where there’s freedom, where we’re not having to talk about these issues of today in this post-Dobbs hellscape that Donald Trump created.”

He spoke during a tour of Meadow Reproductive Health and Wellness, a Washington-area reproductive health clinic that provides abortion services outside of Washington, underscoring the depth at which abortion rights is likely to play a role in Harris’ campaign.

This facility was created in response to the Dobbs decision to facilitate access to reproductive care for Virginians as well as out-of-state patients who live in states where abortion is restricted, according to an HHS official. It opened in 2023.

Emhoff, in his first remarks since Harris became the likely Democratic presidential candidate, praised the vice president for unifying the party and expressed confidence that she would ultimately beat Trump in November.

Emhoff dismissed Republicans’ criticisms of Harris and predicted that she’d ramp up the focus on Trump’s most divisive policy proposals. And he praised President Joe Biden as a “great man,” saying he’d got choked up after hearing Biden voice support for her candidacy.

“We’re going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and his lies,” Emhoff said. “Kamala Harris has united the party. She’s going to unite the country.”

Trump has attacked Harris in increasingly personal terms over the last few days, calling her “crazy” and “nuts” during a rally Saturday and later insulting her on Truth Social as “Dumb as a Rock.”

Harris countered Monday by arguing that her experience as a prosecutor taking on “predators,” “fraudsters” and “cheaters” makes her uniquely qualified for the fight against Trump.

But on Tuesday, Emhoff focused more on the policy areas where he signaled that Trump is viewed as particularly vulnerable. In addition to abortion rights, he highlighted Trump’s conduct during the Covid pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“We’re also going to move on from this type of environment, this Dobbs — where freedoms are taken away, where autonomy is taken away,” he said. “All that is going to change and it must change.”