US Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to have trouble containing her laughter while commenting that the upcoming presidential election is “packed with some stuff” as she addressed voters in Arizona on Friday.
During a campaign event in Scottsdale, Harris, who appeared to be speaking without a teleprompter, told supporters that the importance of the upcoming election and America’s status as a “role model” for democracy “weighs on me sometimes.”
“When we think about what’s at stake in this election – well, it’s packed with some stuff,” Harris said before going into a prolonged fit of laughter. “I say rather articulately,” she added while still laughing.
Harris’ supporters cheered her attempt to simplify the complexities of the election, but social media users bashed the Democratic candidate over her lack of eloquence and infamous “cackling.”
“Kamala Harris without a teleprompter is the Democrat Party’s worst nightmare,” Fox News contributor Steve Cortes wrote on X in response to the vice president’s remarks, noting that her speech is “brutal to watch.”
Another user suggested that Harris’s “cackle” could be a cover for her “insecurity and ineptness” while others expressed disbelief at “how anyone could seriously select her on a ballot for any office, let alone Commander in Chief.”
Harris’ unique laughter has been a point her critics have held against her. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, had previously suggested jokingly that the way she “laughs so infectiously” suggests that “everything is going well for her” and could mean that she would refrain from pursuing more sanctions against Russia due to her positive disposition. Putin’s ‘endorsement’ was quickly picked up by US media outlets while the White House urged the Russian leader to stop discussing US elections.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later explained that Putin simply has “a good sense of humor” and that his supposed endorsement of Harris was a joke. He also noted that it made no difference to Moscow who wins the election, suggesting that Washington was being controlled by the “notorious ‘deep state’.”