Elected Republicans Start To Back Off ‘DEI’ Attacks On Kamala Harris

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) distanced himself from attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris’ race and gender after other Republican lawmakers dismissed her as a “DEI hire” earlier this week.

Conservatives have made a bogeyman out of DEI hiring initiatives, which promote diversity, equity and inclusion, by claiming without evidence that they deprioritize skills and qualifications.

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Johnson suggested Republicans should focus on Harris’ record rather than her background.

“Listen, this election, as I noted at the onset, is going to be about policies, not personalities. This is not personal regarding Kamala Harris,” Johnson said Tuesday at a press conference. “Her ethnicity and her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever. This is about who can deliver for the American people and get us out of the mess that we’re in.”

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would be standing down his reelection campaign following widespread concerns about his ability to serve another four years, throwing his support behind Harris. Democratic lawmakers and delegates followed suit, prompting some Republicans to go straight after Harris’ ethnicity and gender.

“One hundred percent, she was a DEI hire,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday, adding, “When you go down that route, you get mediocrity.”

On Tuesday, Burchett said Joe Biden has trumpeted “diversity, equity and inclusion” as a core American value, but he said Republicans would focus on Harris’ record rather than her identity.

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“I think we can just focus on her performance as vice president, as the ‘border czar,’ and that is enough,” Burchett told HuffPost.

And Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), who told CBS 58 on Sunday that “a lot of Democrats feel they have to stick with her because of her ethnic background,” said Tuesday that Harris’ “defining characteristic” is her role in the administration’s border policy.

“I think the major thing when you think of Kamala Harris, you think of refusing to go down to the border when the president ordered her to,” Grothman said.

Outside Congress, however, right-wing commentators on Harris have been far less careful.

Sebastian Gorka, an ally of former President Donald Trump who once served in the White House, went on a racist tear during a Newsmax segment two weeks ago.

“She’s a DEI hire, right? She’s a woman! She’s colored! Therefore, she has to be good,” Gorka said of Harris, with sarcasm.

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Jackson Lahmeyer, the preacher behind the group Pastors for Trump, said Monday on social media that “the Biblical term” for Harris was “whore.” Another sexist phrase, “Heels Up Harris,” trended Monday on X, the site now run by Trump acolyte and billionaire Elon Musk.

Conservative pundit and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly pushed back against the idea that sexist attacks on Harris would not help Republicans.

“Disagree,” Kelly wrote on X. “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics and most women (and men) may learn that and see it for what it is: evidence of an unqualified political aspirant getting ahead based on smthg [sic] other than merit.”

Some right-wing social media commentators even appear willing to revisit the racist “birther” conspiracy theory used to attack former President Barack Obama, with Trump being the theory’s most high-profile and vocal supporter.

The theory — which dates back to her 2019 presidential campaign — goes that she is ineligible to be president because she is not a natural-born citizen. But Harris was born on Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, according to a copy of her birth certificate obtained by The Associated Press. That makes her a U.S. citizen by birth under the 14th Amendment.

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Democrats said they expected racist and sexist attacks on Harris to continue.

“I think it’s going to be very important that, I think, we brace ourselves for some of the unfair, misogynistic and racial undertones, overtones, explicit attacks and implicit attacks that she may be subject to,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told reporters.

“We’re not just going to see attacks on the vice president about the border,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told reporters on Sunday. “We’re going to see some of the most racist and misogynistic attacks that we’ve seen in a long time from Donald Trump and a lot of his supporters on the vice president.”

Jonathan Nicholson contributed reporting.

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