Vice President Kamala Harris once again left Earth’s orbit on Monday to serve up another word salad — this time while bringing up constellations to talk about crime, earning her the nickname “Galileo Harris.”
Harris, 59, seemed to have her head in the clouds during the film an interview with Black Star Network host Roland Martin as she answered a question about what she called opponent Donald Trump’s fixation on crime in Democratic-run cities.
“I once talked to someone who said, ‘You know, if you just look at where the stars are in the sky. Don’t look [at] “They’re just random things, as long as you think of them as points,” Harris replied. “Look at the constellation, what does it show you?”
“So you just sketched it, Roland, what does it show you? Those are the cities he pays attention to in terms of black population or black mayor, or both,” she said. “Come on.”
The Trump campaign cut the comments and posted them online, prompting X critics to pounce on the elaborate veep.
“THIS is about ‘black agenda with Roland?’ ‘a person asked in disbelief.
Another one snapped“Space cadet? Yes, she is LOL.”
Some site users accused Harris of being under the influence of marijuana — with one joking, “Me after eating 250 mg of THC” — while others said it revealed Democrats’ tendency to choose substandard political candidates based on identity markers.
“This is what happens when you choose leaders based solely on their skin pigment, genitals, attraction to genitals, or perception of genitals,” responded Mike Davis, who founded a conservative legal advocacy group and target of the Harris campaign as a close ally of Trump.
Still others derided Harris, chairman of the National Space Council, as President Biden’s “space czar” and “Galileo Harris,” after the 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei.
“Meanwhile, Xi and Putin are licking their chops,” one person warned.
Harris and Martin alleged that Trump’s rhetoric had primarily targeted Black voters in Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta with accusations of voting irregularities during the 2020 election.
“He mentions cities where significant African Americans live, and that’s what he’s talking about: black people,” Martin said.
“Yes,” Harris agreed.
The Harris campaign last week released ads that also highlighted Trump’s comments on the decline of the auto industry, as well as his claims to the Detroit Economic Club that the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction.
“The whole country will say: do you want to know the truth? It will be like Detroit,” the Republican presidential candidate predicted on Thursday. “Our whole country will end up looking like Detroit if she’s your president.”
Trump blamed Democrats for fueling crime epidemics in big cities during his re-election campaign four years ago, adding to Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a June 2020 interview that his comments did not harbor racial animus.
“Look at Detroit, look at what’s happening in Oakland, look at what’s happening in Baltimore, and everyone gets upset when I say it, ‘They say, ‘Oh, is that a racist statement?’ is not racist,” the 45th president said.
“Honestly, black people come up to me and say, ‘Thank you, thank you, sir, for saying it.’ They want help, these cities – it’s like living in hell,” Trump said.
In 2020, major urban centers saw a double-digit increase in crime from the previous year, with New York City recording a 97% increase in shootings, from 777 in 2019 to 1,531 in 2020 – a 44% increase in murders, from 319 to 462. This was evident from the NYPD statistics.
Harris’ criticism of “#RolandMartinUnfiltered” comes as her campaign expands its reach to Black voters.
Pundits, pollsters and even former President Barack Obama have pointed to the gap in enthusiasm among the demographic in 2024, compared to previous presidential election years.
“We still need to see the same kind of energy and turnout in every corner of our neighborhoods and communities that we saw when I was running,” Obama told attendees at a “Black Voters for Harris” event in Pittsburgh on Thursday.
Neither the Harris campaign nor the Trump campaign immediately responded to a Post request for comment on Monday.
