Vance calls last-minute Harris campaign a ‘sucker punch’

WASHINGTON: Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance described the last-minute entry of Kamala Harris into the US presidential race as a “sucker punch,” according to a recording of his remarks at a fundraiser obtained by a Media Company.

In remarks contrasting with his campaign’s public messaging — but revealing the upheaval in a race that had seemed set to feature Donald Trump against Joe Biden — Vance told donors over the weekend that “all of us were hit with a little bit of a political sucker punch.”

The Vance-Trump campaign has insisted that the Democratic vice president’s entry into the race won’t upend their strategy, and that Harris is tied to her boss Biden’s policies.

“Nothing fundamentally changes,” senior Trump advisor Jason Miller told AFP at the Republican National Convention earlier this month, as speculation was brewing that Biden might drop out.

“Whether it’s Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, or any other radical liberal Democrats, they all share responsibility for the failure of destroying our economy and ruining our borders.”