WATCH: Harris condemns Trump’s divisive racial rhetoric

In response to former President Donald Trump’s comments on her identity as a Black woman, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “It’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people.”
Harris then highlighted incidents from Trump’s past, such as refusing to rent property to Black families as a land owner, calling for the execution of the Central Park Five in a full page New York Times ad and spreading “birther lies about the first Black president of the United States.”
She also expressed that the “vast majority” of Americans do not support dividing the country based on race and instead see one another as a “neighbor.”
“We don’t want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other,” Harris said. “I meet with people all the time who tell me, ‘Can we please just have discourse about how we’re going to invest in the aspirations and the ambitions and the dreams of the American people?’ Knowing that regardless of people’s color or the language their grandmother speaks, we all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those not in hate and division.”
Harris and Trump met for their first and possibly only debate on Sept. 10, hosted by ABC in Philadelphia. Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee this summer after Biden gave a troubling debate performance in June, increasing calls for him to drop out of the race.
According to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, more than two-thirds of Americans say they will watch all or most of the debate. While many voters have already made up their minds, 14 percent of Americans say the debate will have a great impact on which candidate they choose.