AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said President Donald Trump complimented her in a phone call last year and pledged to tone down his rhetoric on the campaign trail.
On Thursday, The New York Times published excerpts from Harris’s upcoming book, 107 Days, a reference to the length of her abbreviated 2024 campaign. The vice president secured the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid. In June of last year, Biden performed poorly in his debate with Trump and withdrew from contention the following month.
While campaigning against Harris, Trump repeatedly called her and Democrats “fascists,” “communists,” “Marxists,” among other descriptors. He also mispronounced and misspelled Harris’s first name, with perhaps the most egregious instance being “Kamabla.”
According to an excerpt published by the Times, Harris detailed two phone calls she had with Trump last year. The first came after he was shot in the ear while speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania. Trump blamed Harris’s rhetoric for the shooting. Despite this, she asked aides to arrange a call with Trump:
“You’ve done a great job, you really have,” Mr. Trump told her. “My only problem is it makes it very hard for me to be angry at you.” It’s like, what am I going to do? How do I say bad things about you now?”
“Well, then don’t,” she replied.
“I’m going to tone it down,” Mr. Trump said. “I will. You’re going to see.”
Mr. Trump then told her that his daughter Ivanka was a “big fan,” and asked her to say hello to her husband, Doug Emhoff, for him. Ms. Harris wrote that she did not fall for his magnanimity. “He’s a con man. He’s really good at it,” she wrote. “I’d readied myself for a phone conversation with Mr. Hyde, but Dr. Jekyll had picked up the call.”
The other call came on election night when Harris phoned Trump to concede:
“I am going to be so nice and respectful,” Mr. Trump said. “You are a tough, smart customer, and I say that with great respect. And you also have a beautiful name. I got use of that name, it’s Kamala.”
He pronounced her name correctly on that call, after mispronouncing it in public all through the campaign.
The Times said the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elsewhere in her book, Harris revealed that Biden phoned her “minutes” before her only debate with Trump to confront her about a rumor that she had been bad-mouthing him behind his back.
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself,” she wrote.
The post Kamala Harris Claims Trump Told Her, ‘You’ve Done a Great Job’ and Said ‘I’m Going to Tone It Down’ first appeared on Mediaite.
