Vice President Kamala Harris has been subject to misogynistic attacks since she became the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and now Megyn Kelly has said she “slept” into politics.
President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would not seek reelection in 2024, endorsing Kamala Harris, who would be the first Black, South Asian and female vice president in U.S. history. Biden’s decision came after weeks of pressure from within his party and from major Democratic donors to step down due to concerns about his age and mental health.
Harris is currently the party’s front-runner to face Donald Trump in the November presidential election. Online, trolls have responded to the news by posting explicit, sexually-charged jokes about the vice president. Many social media users echoed the idea that Harris “slept her way to the top,” referencing her brief relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
One of those people was former Fox News anchor Kelly, who responded to a Twitter post by his former pseudonym “X” and said Harris was an “unqualified political aspirant”.
Newsweek Emails seeking comment were sent to spokespeople for Kelly and Harris on Tuesday.
Ivan Apfel/Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images/Getty Images courtesy of The New York Times
Before Kelly shared her thoughts, right-wing activist and columnist Matt Walsh posted on X: “Kamala Harris got into politics because she slept with Willie Brown. She became VP because Biden needed a non-white woman on the ticket. Now she’s likely to be the Democratic nominee for president because the top candidate has dementia. She’s made a career out of begging for handouts from those in power. Totally disrespectful.”
As of this writing, the video has been viewed 12.5 million times.
Feminist author and journalist Naomi Wolf disagreed with Walsh’s post, writing, “This kind of sexist commentary from male Republicans is not going to go over well. The female swing vote is an opportunity, and Trump/Vance needs them. ‘She slept her way to the top’ will just alienate a lot of women and is not an argument.”
Her post has been viewed 3.6 million times.
But Kelly, no stranger to speaking her mind online, echoed Walsh’s sentiments in her response to Wolf’s post, alluding to the fact that Harris met Brown when she was 29 and he was 60, when she was an assistant district attorney and he was speaker of the California Assembly.
“To the contrary. She actually slept her way up in California politics. Most women (and men) would know that and understand it for what it is: evidence of an unqualified political aspirant who got promoted for a reason.” [sic] “I don’t care about anything other than merit. Relevant and fair,” Kelly wrote, her post having had 3.6 million views at the time of writing.
I disagree. She actually slept her way up in California politics. Most women (and men) would know that and understand it for what it is: evidence that an unqualified political aspirant got ahead based on something other than merit. It’s relevant and fair game. https://t.co/qIrx0xGC6a
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 22, 2024
According to a 2020 Reuters fact check, Ms Harris and Mr Brown dated from 1994 to 1995, the year before Mr Brown was elected mayor. Mr Brown was 30 years older than Ms Harris and had been separated from his wife for more than a decade before the two began dating.
In contrast to his comments about Harris, Kelly previously said it was “not immoral” for former President Donald Trump to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair between them.
“What went wrong?” she asked during an appearance on NewsNation. Dan Abrams Live.
“I don’t know what kind of strange marriage these two have. [Donald and Melania Trump]… So I don’t know what their contract is in terms of what a husband is allowed to do outside of the marriage.”
When Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday, online trolls erupted, with some suggesting that Harris’ political success was only due to her superimposing her face onto photos of nude or skimpy-clad women and engaging in sexual acts.
One of X’s accounts posted side-by-side photos of J.D. Vance and Harris, with both photos showing the politicians ” [their] Career[s]While the photo of Vance, a former military journalist, showed him in military uniform, the photo of Harris was a crude fabrication that suggested the former California attorney general must have engaged in sexual favours to advance his career.
Milo Yiannopoulos, the notorious Trump troll who had a book deal and speaking invitation canceled in 2017 after comments he made appearing to condone gay pedophilia, has also circulated graphic memes online, calling Harris a “kumala” and claiming she has a “sordid sexual history.”
CNN columnist Jill Filipovic reposted one of Yiannopoulos’s claims on X, captioning it: “So basically, they’re saying Kamala Harris is a baby-sucking slut.” [Trump] He has five children with three women, his first wife cheated on his second wife, his third wife cheated on him with a Playboy model while she was pregnant, and then with a porn star after the baby was born.
Harris has been a target of attacks throughout her career, but the attacks intensified after Biden selected her as his running mate in 2020.
Rare knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
