'Indispensable ally': Professor argues Kamala Harris has a surprising tool to help her win

Vice President Kamala Harris has a surprising "ally" who will help take her presidential campaign to victory, a columnist argued on Sunday.

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington, D.C., columnist covering national politics for the Washington Post and a government professor at Georgetown University, said over the weekend that "Harris has an indispensable ally as she closes her presidential campaign."

"She carries messages from him nearly everywhere she goes," he wrote for the Post.

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His name, according to the columnist, "is Donald Trump."

"At a United Auto Workers union hall in Lansing, Mich., on Friday, she showed video of Trump demeaning the labor of autoworkers by describing them as simply taking parts 'out of a box' and putting them together — 'we could have our child do it,' he claimed — and declaring his hatred of overtime pay," the article states. "On Saturday night in Atlanta, the video presentation focused on a shamefully dismissive comment by Trump about Amber Thurman, who died in 2022 after being unable to access medical care because of the state’s abortion restrictions. Trump, Harris said, was 'cruel,' and 'still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and suffering he has caused.'"

Dionne makes the argument that, for "Republican-leaning voters who can’t stomach Trump but are reluctant to vote Democratic, she has highlighted the threat he poses to freedom and constitutional democracy. Clips of Trump describing his political opponents as 'the enemy within' and threatening to use the military against them make the point more dramatically than anything a critic could say."

He continues:

"For Harris, Trump’s indiscipline offers her the chance to seize back the momentum she enjoyed from three surges: her buoyant emergence after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, the success of the Democratic convention and her pummeling of Trump in their single debate. Since then, Trump has managed to shift attention to his own attacks on Harris, his dire and deceptive tirades about immigration, and voter concerns about the cost of living. The result is polling suggesting virtual ties in all seven swing states."

However, he argues, Harris is now turning it around using Trump's own speeches, and it could take her to victory.

Dionne highlights Harris' recent speeches, which analysts have said are increasingly relying upon Trump's words. On Sunday, the vice president drew attention to Trump saying, "I have no cognitive," seeming to lend some credence to Dionne's theory.

Read the full column here.