A controversial ad from Kamala Harris’s campaign has faced backlash from former President Donald Trump’s campaign team, calling it “despicable and racist.” The ad targeted Asian American voters, suggesting Trump’s presidency could bring conditions echoing that of WWII internment camps.
The ad linked historical events like the internment camps and Vincent Chin’s 1982 murder. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung criticized Harris and Andrew Peng for pushing divisive politics.
“This is despicable and racist behavior by Kamala Harris and her team,” Cheung said. “They have no morals, decency, or ethical standards, so they resort to the lowest form of political theater.”
“Andrew Peng is a [expletive] disgrace to the AAPI community and he should be shamed for throwing his own people down the gutter for political purposes,” Cheung added.
Virginia Republican Senate candidate Hung Cao, a Vietnamese immigrant, claimed that the Democratic Party is seeking to recreate the very conditions from which immigrants have fled.
“Nope, that’s not it. Americans of Asian heritage know full well what Kamala Harris would turn our country into: the places our families escaped from. That’s why we are supporting @realDonaldTrump,” Cao said.
Critics called the ad demagogic and argued it may alienate Asian voters.
“The Harris campaign is running an anti-Trump ad that flashes an image of an *internment camp* (created by a Democratic president, if we’re going there) and appears to blame Trump for the early-80s murder of an Asian man in Michigan. Astonishing demagoguery,” commentator Guy Benson wrote.
“What an insane ad,” commentator Steve Guest added. “Further, the fact Democrats don’t face more criticism all these years later for FDR’s internment camps is bananas too.”
“These kind of ads are going to insult and repel Asian voters if anything else,” columnist Joe Concha wrote. “I get politics can be dirty, but this is absolutely nauseating.”
