As she steps up her appeals to Black voters, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on a popular Black radio program Tuesday where she said she is still open to slavery reparations and slammed former President Donald Trump for allegedly sending Covid tests to Russia “when black people were dying” back home.
In a wide-ranging live radio town hall in Detroit hosted by syndicated radio host Charlamagne tha God, Harris faced pointed questions from the host and his guests, some of whom said they felt Black voters have been taken for granted by Democrats while getting “very little in return.”
Harris, who has been trying to stem Democrats’ small but steady erosion of support from voters of color, spoke personally about her upbringing in Oakland, the Black Church and at Howard University, but said she knew she had to “earn every vote.”
But while she often tells supporters on the campaign trail that she is the underdog, she said Tuesday: “I’m going to win, but it’s tight.”
Harris opened a new line of attack on Trump, connecting his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an issue which has been seen mainly as of concern to educated white progressives, to the wellbeing of Black Americans.
Drawing on a new book by famed journalist Bob Woodward, Harris slammed Trump for reportedly sending Covid-19 testing devices to Putin when the machines were in short supply back home. NBC News has not been able to independently verify that.