Vice President Kamala Harris has been at the receiving end of misogynistic attacks after becoming the Democratic Party's front-runner for the party's presidential nomination—and now, Megyn Kelly has said Harris "slept her way" into politics.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he would not be seeking reelection in the 2024 presidential race and threw his support behind Kamala Harris, the first Black, South Asian and female vice president in U.S. history. His decision followed weeks of pressure from within his party and from key Democratic donors to step down amid concerns over his age and mental acuity.
Harris is currently the favorite to be selected by her party to run against Donald Trump in November's election. Trolls have reacted to the news by flocking online to share graphic, often sexualized, jokes about the vice president. Many social media users reiterated the idea that Harris "slept her way to the top," referencing her brief relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
One such person is former Fox News anchor Kelly, who said Harris was an "unqualified political aspirant" after responding to a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Kelly and Harris for comment on Tuesday.
Before Kelly shared her thoughts, right-wing activist and columnist Matt Walsh posted to X: "Kamala Harris got her start in politics by sleeping with Willie Brown. She became Vice President because Biden needed a non-white female on the ticket. Now she likely becomes the Democratic nominee for president because the guy at the top of the ticket has dementia. She's made a career out of begging for hand outs from powerful men. A thoroughly unimpressive human being."
At the time of writing, it had been viewed 12.5 million times.
Feminist author and journalist Naomi Wolf disagreed with Walsh's post, writing: "This kind of sexist take from Republican men will not play well. Swing voters who are women are up for grabs, the Trump/Vance ticket needs them, and 'she slept her way to the top' just repels many women and is not an argument."
Her post had been viewed 3.6 million times.
However, Kelly—who is no stranger to sharing her opinions online—echoed Walsh's sentiment in her response to Wolf's post. She alluded to the fact that Harris dated Brown after they met when she was 29 years old and he was 60 years old. She was an assistant district attorney and he was the California State Assembly speaker.
"Disagree. 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. It's relevant, and fair game," Kelly wrote, with her post having been viewed 3.6 million times at the time of writing.
Harris and Brown dated from 1994 to 1995, the year before Brown was elected mayor, according to a 2020 Reuters fact check. Brown, who is 30 years her senior, had been separated from his wife for more than a decade by the time they got together.
In contrast to her comments about Harris, Kelly previously stated that former President Donald Trump paying adult film star, Stormy Daniels, to keep quiet about an alleged affair the two had was "not immoral."
"How was it wrong?" she asked while appearing on NewsNation's Dan Abrams Live.
"I don't know what kind of weird marriage these two have [Donald and Melania Trump]...So I don't know what their covenant is in terms of what he's allowed to do on the outside of his marriage."
When Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday, the trolls came out in force online. Several individuals suggested that Harris could only have achieved her political success by performing sexual favors by Photoshopping her head onto pictures of nude women or women in skimpy clothing.
One account on X posted a photograph of JD Vance alongside one of Harris with both images said to show the politicians "early in [their] career[s]." While a photo of former military journalist Vance appeared to show him in uniform, the Harris image was crudely mocked up to imply the former attorney general of California must have engaged in sex acts to advance her career.
Notorious troll Milo Yiannopoulos, a Trump supporter who had a book deal and speaking engagements canceled after comments surfaced in 2017 in which he allegedly appeared to condone some instances of pedophilia involving gay men, has also been sharing graphic memes online. He referred to Harris as "Cumala" and alleged she had a "sordid sexual history."
CNN columnist Jill Filipovic reposted one of Yiannopoulos' claims on X with the caption: "So they're going with 'Kamala Harris is a childless slut' when their candidate [Trump] has five children with three different women, cheated on his first wife with the second, cheated on the third with a Playboy model when the wife was pregnant & a porn star when she was postpartum, ok."
Harris has been the target of attacks throughout her career but when Biden selected her to be his running mate in 2020, they intensified.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
