Kamala Harris worried so much about Donald Trump’s attempts to ridicule her laugh that she privately considered hiding her sense of humor from the public, says a new report.
The vice president is proud of having “my mother’s laugh” and videos of her trademark guffaws became a meme online that Trump and his followers sought to exploit.
At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 20, the GOP presidential nominee jeered: “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.”
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On his Truth Social account, he referred to Harris as “Laffin” Kamala.
According to The New York Times, when the conservative media first started poking fun at her laughter after she became vice president she was left weighing up “the political risks of cheerfulness.”
She privately asked confidants if she should laugh or show any sign of her sense of humor.
Citing two sources familiar with the discussions, the Times reported that Harris’ aides assured her that she should never stop laughing.
And now it appears that Harris is having the last laugh, at least as far as the success of her joyful campaign strategy is concerned.
Tim Walz voiced the ticket’s optimistic approach in Detroit on Wednesday, saying: “The one thing I will not forgive them for is they try to steal the joy from this country,” he said of his Republican rivals. “But you know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy.”
Walz has successfully pitched the idea that Trump and his running mate, JD Vance are “weird” and he has questioned why Trump never laughs.
“If he has laughed, it’s at someone, not with someone. That is weird behavior. And I don’t think you call it anything else. It’s simply what we’re observing,” he said.
In 2016, CNN’s Gregory Krieg wrote an article questioning whether Trump has ever laughed.
“He certainly jokes. He grins, winks, puckers and preens. Trump works to get his crowds to laugh, even when he’s promising to make “them” stop laughing at us,” he wrote. “But how about a laugh from him–from the belly, mouth agape–a real booming, sustained cackle?”
For the moment, Kamala has learned to trust her sense of humor while Trump doesn't appear to have too much to laugh about.
But the real test will come after Tuesday, November 5. Only one of them will be laughing then.
