Donald Trump Accuses Kamala Harris of Being a Marxist Like Her Father, Is It True?
"Her father is a Marxist professor in economics, he taught her well," Trump said.
Published Sept. 10 2024, 9:47 p.m. ET
It only took 15 minutes into the first debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris for Trump to accuse Kamala of being a Marxist.
He then doubled down and also accused her father, Donald J. Harris, of following the economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
"She’s a Marxist, everyone knows that. Her father is a Marxist professor in economics, he taught her well," Trump said.
The claim shocked social media, with many coming to Harris's defense, but what is true?
Is Kamala Harris' father really a Marxist? Trump's claim explained.
Trump was accurate when he stated that Kamala Harris's father was an economist — he is a professor emeritus at Stanford University.
Trump's claim stems from an article in a 1976 issue of The Stanford Daily, where he was deemed a "Marxist" scholar, amid opposition to granting him tenure because he was "too charismatic, a pied piper leading students astray from neo-Classical economics.'"
He retired from Stanford in 1998.
Harris has never addressed her father's political ideology, but her policies have been called many things — though not Marxist.
The New York Times has called Harris a "pragmatic moderate" while CNN deemed her policies "one of the most liberal" in the Senate.
GovTrack listed her as the fourth-most liberal senator from 2017 to 2019.
Harris has also spoken about how she was raised primarily by her mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan.
"When I was 5, my parents split and my mother raised us mostly on her own," Kamala said during her speech at the DNC. "Like so many mothers, she worked around the clock to make it work, packing lunches before we woke up and paying bills after we went to bed, helping us with homework at the kitchen table, and shuttling us to church for choir practice. She made it look easy, though it never was."
Social media reacts to Donald Trump's claims Kamala and her father are Marxists.
Many people, from political pundits to politicians to American citizens reacted to Trump's claim.
"Donald Trump calling Kamala Harris a Marxist is laughable — they’re both corporate shills who work for their Wall Street donors," Dr. Jill Stein tweeted.
"Omg Trump called Kamala a Marxist. I wish she would turn around and ask him to define Marxism," commentator Kyle Kulinski added.
A third chimed in, "She's a Marxist." LOL. She's triggering him. It's working."