Harris Calls Trump ‘One of the Biggest Losers in Manufacturing History’

In one of her most powerful speeches to date against former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris called him a “loser” for failing to grow domestic manufacturing during his administration.

“Overall, we’ve lost close to 200,000 manufacturing jobs during President Trump’s term, and that was before the pandemic even started,” Harris said Wednesday, borrowing Trump’s hyperbolic rhetoric. “Trump has been one of the biggest economic losers in history.”

Harris portrayed Trump as an out-of-touch rich man who only cares about himself and his wealthy friends.

“As Andrea said, not everyone is handed $400 million on a silver platter and has filed for bankruptcy six times,” Harris said, referring to someone who had previously spoken at the event.

“Oh, I said that,” she interjected. “I actually said that.”

It was one of the vice president’s most direct attacks on Trump since he won the Democratic nomination, and it struck a key issue that has major sway with voters.

Harris traveled to western Pennsylvania to lay out a plan to strengthen the middle class, which she called “a defining goal of my presidency.”

Her vision of an “opportunity economy” includes a $6,000 tax credit for new parents and a $25,000 down payment for first-time homebuyers to help them get a foothold in a tough housing market. She also pledged tax credits for steel and other manufacturing industries and investments in apprenticeship programs for skilled trades.

Harris portrayed herself as a product of the middle class, recalling her mother “sitting at the yellow Formica table late at night, a cup of tea in her hand, a stack of bills in front of her, trying to pay them all off at the end of the month.” In contrast, Harris noted, Trump used his family’s wealth to build a real estate empire, only to fail several times.

“For Donald Trump, our economy is best served not by the people who build skyscrapers, not by the people who run the cables to skyscrapers, not by the people who clean the floors, but by the people who own the big skyscrapers. Well, I have a very different vision,” Harris said.

Harris criticized Trump’s grandiose campaign promise to revitalize factories, a key promise of his 2016 campaign. The coronavirus pandemic has thwarted Trump’s progress on this front. He said manufacturing job growth had been steadily increasing since former President Barack Obama, but the pandemic reversed that trend, with the sector losing a net 188,000 jobs during Trump’s term.

Trump’s campaign downplayed the manufacturing comments in its statement to Harris.

“Personal savings are down, credit card debt is up, small business optimism is at an all-time low, and people are struggling to afford housing, groceries, gas. With every speech Kamala makes, it becomes clearer and clearer that only President Trump can make America wealthy again,” said Caroline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary.