Eric Reed, the trainer of Kentucky Derby long shot winner Rich Strike, is facing criticism after he dodged a question from an ESPN reporter about a sexist slur he tweeted about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reed made the remark in response to a post from former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, who had questioned Harris' qualifications, to which Reed replied he'd heard Harris "is good on her knees!"
But when asked about the offensive tweet, Reed said he didn't "know anything about it," he's more concerned about "this great horse and how he's helping everybody. He added there are "haters out there" though he did not elaborate further.
You can hear what Reed said in the video below.
Reed said:
“I haven’t seen anything about it. Haven’t been told about it. I don’t know what’s going on out there."
"I’m more concerned with Richie and what’s going on with us, and this great horse, and how much he’s helping everybody."
"So, there’s haters out there, and that’s about how I’m gonna leave something like that.”
@daddyrabbit74, the Twitter account the tweet originated from, says it belongs to the “Owner of Mercury Equine Center,” which is Reed. And according to the Twitter bio, the account holder is a “horse trainer” and “Reagan conservative." The account has since been set to private.
Some have jumped to Reed's defense.
But not everyone is buying his explanation.
Harris is no stranger to dehumanizing attacks or misogynistic commentary.
Former President Donald Trump–whose photo is displayed in the background of Reed's home per the ESPN interview–has referred to her as “totally unlikable” and a “communist.”
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, has called Harris "a transparent fraud, from her phony inflected accent to her synthetic bio to her featherweight work history," disparaging the work she did when she was the District Attorney of San Francisco and the Attorney General of California.
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