Former President Donald Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris “retarded” while attempting to convince top Republican donors to pour more money in his campaign, The New York Times reported Saturday.
According to the Times, the former president’s offensive remark came during a dinner with donors at his penthouse apartment last month. Among the donors present were Trump’s former education secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, along with hedge fund manager Paul Singer, investment banker Warren Stephens and billionaire Joe Ricketts.
To the group of wealthy donors, Trump argued that his administration’s tax policy was favorable to them and that they should be grateful and help his campaign more, according to the Times.
Sources told the Times that Trump was frustrated with fundraising numbers as Harris continues to bring in more cash than his campaign.
“If money guaranteed electoral success, Hillary Clinton would have been president,” Trump’s campaign said Saturday in a statement to CNN.
“President Trump is in a better financial position than ever before, and he’s leading in the polls,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt added.
Trump’s exasperation comes in the final stretch of the campaign, as the race to the White House remains exceedingly tight. Researchers at OpenSecret, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in elections, noted in a report this week that at this rate, Trump could struggle even to match what his political operation raised during the 2020 campaign.
Meanwhile, Harris has raised $1 billion since entering the race in late July, CNN reported earlier this week. While other presidential candidates — alongside their political parties — have exceeded the $1 billion mark in past elections, Harris crossed that threshold at a breakneck pace.
Trump has often made disparaging remarks about his opponents, including President Joe Biden when he was still in the race. Late last month, Trump publicly insulted Harris’ mental state at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, calling her “mentally impaired.”
For Harris’ part, during her first presidential campaign in 2019, Harris came under fire for responding, “Well said,” to a lengthy question from a voter who had called Trump’s actions “mentally retarded.”
Harris at the time posted an apology from her presidential campaign account on X, then known as Twitter, and while she said she didn’t hear the term, she said, “That word and others like it aren’t acceptable. Ever.”
At last month’s dinner, Trump also repeated his recent attacks on Jewish voters who do not support him, once again saying, “they needed their heads examined,” according to the Times.
Trump has used the same phrase several times on the campaign trail to argue that Jewish voters would bear some blame if he loses in November.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten, Alayne Treene and Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed to this report.
