Vice President Kamala Harris released a new web ad featuring former President Donald Trump repeating Harris' framing of the 2024 presidential race as "the prosecutor versus the convicted felon," using only Trump's own words to make her point.
In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes. The jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to illegally influence the 2016 election. His sentencing was set for July 11 but has now been delayed in the wake of a Supreme Court decision granting him sweeping immunity protections.
In Harris' first event as a presidential candidate this week, she made the point that as San Francisco District Attorney and then California's Attorney General, she prosecuted predators and fraudsters like Trump. The presidential race, as she framed it, was "the prosecutor versus the convicted felon."
So when Donald Trump repeated that line verbatim at one of his rallies, Harris' team simply clipped it and created an incredibly effective and succinct ad.
In the ad, Trump can be seen ranting:
"And then the [Harris] campaign says, 'I'm the prosecutor and he is the convicted felon."
The ad then cuts to an image of Harris, who can be heard saying:
"I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message."
You can see the ad below.
Harris has emphasized her familiarity with "Donald Trump's type," positioning herself once again as a formidable prosecutor with a successful track record before entering Washington politics.
Addressing her staff and supporters at her campaign headquarters in Delaware, she said:
"Before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was elected attorney general, as I've mentioned, to California. Before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds."
"Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters, who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type. And in this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his."
The ad was well received, with many pointing out that it's an example of Harris' philosophy in action.
The ad's release comes just days after a 2019 Kamala Harris for President ad resurfaced in which she points out that she "prosecuted sex predators" and that Trump "is one."
The video, which refers to Harris as the "anti-Trump" and was originally produced during Harris’ bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination, highlights her accomplishments as a prosecutor—and demonstrates that Trump is exactly the type of person she would have prosecuted for his sex crimes.
Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton and former communications director for the Democratic National Committee, told reporters that Harris' candidacy presents "a beautiful split screen" because Harris "went after bad people who hurt the people that she was representing and that's exactly what she's doing now."
