U.S ELECTION
The full weight of the Trump social media machine will turn its fire on Kamala Harris after Joe Biden chose her as his running mate for the US presidential election.
But she is a tough cookie – as proven during her career as a criminal prosecutor when she took on all kinds of depravity, including sexual predators.
Millions think cool-headed Harris, known as “the female Obama” is the perfect choice to take on Donald Trump.
Only the second black woman in the Senate, she is now the first woman of colour to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket.
And she has made no secret of her disdain for Donald Trump.
Harris, 55, once said of the President: “I know predators and we have a predator living in the White House.”
Now with 82 days left before America goes to the polls, Harris is squaring up to Trump – and fully expects it to get dirty.
During the run-up to the last election in 2016, Trump supported the false claims that the-then president Barack Obama was not born in America.
Some saw this as a sneaky way to appeal to racist voters. And there are growing expectations that Harris will be targeted in the same way.
After she was voted into the Senate in 2016 she has made numerous fiery speeches and has talked of what she call Trump’s “rap sheet”.
Not only recounting the accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump – which he has denied – Harris attacks his business practices as well as the “ten counts of obstruction of justice” she claims he has committed.
Known for her intimidating style of questioning, offset by her billboard smile, Harris once said of Trump: “He claims to be the best President we’ve seen in a generation. Well, I say, ‘Let’s call Barack Obama... ’cause that’s identity fraud.”
Californian Senator Harris ran for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination but bowed out in December.
When Biden, now the presumptive presidential nominee, announced Harris as his running mate, he called her a “fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants”.
Obama, who was a “sounding board” for Biden, his former Vice President, said
Harris: “Has spent her career defending our constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. This is a good day for our country. Now let’s win this thing.”
There was intense pressure in some quarters for Biden to pick a woman of colour. Calls began before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in May at the hands of police, but increased amid the subsequent protests across the US.
In the past two years, Harris has been a star performer on the Senate Judiciary Committee – roasting Trump’s cronies with her precise interrogation style.
Her questioning of the President’s controversial supreme court pick Judge Brett Kavanaugh made him trip over his words as he tried to argue back.
A political consultant, who has worked
RUNNING MATE