If that headline upsets or even outrages you, good. That means you’re thinking rationally. It also means you are likely a Democrat or at least an Independent who leans left—another sign of rational thought.
The question posed by that headline, which, unlike most headlines, was chosen by me, the writer, not an editor or copywriter, is reverberating around social media, myriad podcasts and intermittently on Fox News and News Max. Donald Trump even said it during the debate, but it was—rightly—ignored by both moderators and by the target of that rumor, Vice President Kamala Harris herself.
I’m not sure when I first heard this about Harris. I’ve been reporting on her since 2004, when she was making history marrying lesbian and gay couples in San Francisco, so likely sometime in the aughts. Thirty years ago, when Harris was young and single, she had a brief relationship with Willie Brown, then mayor of San Francisco. It was that relationship with a man 30 years her senior (Brown is now 90)—and Harris’s unmarried status—that prompted the initial slurs against her.
I know I never thought about it nor spent any time delving into the rumor’s origins. It’s so common for men (but also women) to make such assertions about accomplished women. How could these women possibly make it to a top spot without a man helping them? They must have used their sexuality to get ahead. Never mind the reality that women face intense sexual harassment and even sexual assault on the job in literally every arena, particularly as they move up the ladder. Have we learned nothing from Anita Hill?
In 2019, I was covering Harris’s campaign for several mainstream outlets. I heard the rumors again. By then, Harris was married. She had stepchildren. It was an ugly smear best ignored.
Harris was also a sitting senator—only the second Black woman senator in U.S. history. You can’t sleep your way into the Senate.
But when President Joe Biden withdrew from the race in July and Harris stepped into the breach and became the Democratic nominee, the story resurfaced. The claim was now that Harris was only vice president because of her long past history of sleeping her way to the top and taking handouts from powerful men. No explanation of who Harris could possibly have slept with to have won all those elections, becoming the first Black woman district attorney of San Francisco, the first woman and Black woman attorney general of California and that Senate seat, which also made her only the second woman senator from California.
Like Trump’s assertion at the National Association of Black Journalists conference that Harris didn’t always identify as Black, but “became Black” when she thought she could use it to get ahead and propel her career, the “slept her way to the top” narrative presents a venal Harris who is driven by power and will shape shift as needed to achieve that goal, using her racial identity and sexuality to do so.
It also pivots on what women are and are not allowed to do. Harris was a prototype because she married late and did not have biological children. That latter fact prompted Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, to assert Harris wasn’t an actual mother, fueling outrage even among Republicans in this country with millions of blended families and leading Harris’s husband’s ex-wife to speak out about how integral Harris had been in the co-parenting of her children.
The grossly misogynist narrative about Harris is one pushed by Trump supporters with large social media followings as well as those with radio shows and podcasts. The irony of those supporting a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist for president asking voters “How can you vote for someone who slept her way to the top?” aside, how did this repugnant question come to drive the latter days of this inexplicably tight presidential race?
In a word: Votes. This is one more blatant attempt by Team Trump to woo squishy suburban white women voters who have yet to cross that pivotal 50% marker for Democrats in presidential races. In 2016, white women voted only 47% for Hillary Clinton while Black women voted 94% for her. That white women voting bloc is key to this very tight election and both sides know it.
Harris is counting on the abortion crisis to propel women voters, while Trump is telling women he will “protect them,” as he said at a rally in Pennsylvania Monday night. Trump said, “I make this statement to the great women of our country. Sadly, women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are paying much higher prices for groceries and everything else than they were four years ago.”
Trump said. “I will fix all of that, and fast, and at long last this nation, and national nightmare, will end. It will end,” Trump said. “Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector.”
This is where the smear campaign is gaining traction. For voters unfamiliar with Harris or distrusting of her and her role in the Biden administration—Biden remains unpopular while Harris’s popularity has soared—any question about who Harris really is could hold an unnatural weight.
Trump’s latest far-right advisor, Laura Loomer, who Trump took with him to 9/11 memorial events, has attacked Harris with grotesquely racist posts on Twitter/X, saying the White House would “smell like curry” if the Democratic nominee became the president and “American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call.”
That message was called out by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, but there has been no response to the uptick in the misogynist smears.
Others also called Loomer out for comments she made in a video where she said “I know that Kamala Harris sucked di*k to get where she is today… I’m not like her, OK? I don’t suck di*k to get to the top.”
Right-wing activist and columnist Matt Walsh, whose anti-LGBTQ attacks are well-known, posted to Twitter/X: “Kamala Harris got her start in politics by sleeping with Willie Brown. She became vice president because Biden needed a non-white female on the ticket. Now she likely becomes the Democratic nominee for president because the guy at the top of the ticket has dementia. She’s made a career out of begging for handouts from powerful men. A thoroughly unimpressive human being.”
In the midst of this flurry of misogyny and the gross memes of a naked AI Harris that have accompanied many social media posts that I and other reporters have received, it’s essential to remember that the target is also the sitting vice president.
Some are fighting back against the narrative. TikTok influencer Dean Withers who has been debating other teens about their pro-Trump and pro-MAGA stances, refuting the cult disinformation in real time is one of the fighters. Withers took on the “I could never vote for someone who slept their way to the top” narrative in a blistering exchange with a young woman who just kept repeating the same line about Harris.
Withers grilled her about who Harris slept with to win all the elections she won, querying if Harris had slept with millions of voters to gain those positions. The young woman says she could have, which highlights just how unhinged and entrenched this narrative has become.
While it is perhaps easy to excuse a teenager clearly parroting her parents’ Trump talking points, it’s not kids like her who are necessarily influencing voters. It’s people with a large audience like Megyn Kelly who are the real concern. Kelly hosts a popular talk show and podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” that airs live daily on the Triumph channel on SiriusXM. She was a talk show host at Fox News from 2004 to 2017 and a host and correspondent with NBC News from 2017 to 2018 with two shows with high profile interviews that included Vladimir Putin.
Kelly also has a huge Instagram following and YouTube channel.
Kelly, who regularly attacks Harris on Twitter/X, has been pushing the “she can’t be trusted, she slept her way to the top” narrative on her show to that white woman suburban market that Harris needs to win over and which Trump won in 2016 and 2020.
Kelly said, “I will not be shamed out of discussing this by people who say it’s slut shaming or it’s not relevant. It is relevant when a young candidate tries to sleep her way into politics and into power. And that is what it appears Kamala Harris did when she was a young, political aspirant in San Francisco when she had an affair with a man 30 years older than she was.”
She continued, “Willie Brown, who is like the godfather of San Francisco politics and very well known. And sure enough, that relationship paid dividends for her in more ways than one.”
Kelly also claims that “Kamala Harris is a bully who’s pushed out or made life intolerable for virtually every person who has come to work for her in the White House…People can’t work for her. She’s a nightmare.”
As Harris continues to rise in national polls but swing-state polling remains a dead heat, including here in Pennsylvania, expect this narrative to expand and for Trump to reference it in his rallies. He already uses slurs to describe Harris, calling her “a very dumb person” and “incompetent,” as he did at his Sept. 23 rally in Pennsylvania.
Structural misogyny kept Hillary Clinton out of the White House in 2016. The question now is, will it also keep Kamala Harris from finally breaking that glass ceiling or will enough voters recognize it’s time for a balance of power and smash through all the hateful narratives to elect her the first female president.
