Representative Earl LeRoy “Buddy” Carter believes Kamala Harris is trying to run away from her record as vice president, while claiming that Americans will vote “according to their pocket books” in November.
During a Tuesday morning interview with Fox News, the Georgia congressman claimed that the Harris campaign’s attempt to pin the country’s current woes on Donald Trump “is like OJ going across the country looking for the real killer.”
Carter was commenting on the perceived attempt by Harris and her running mate Tim Walz to frame Democrats as the pro-change ticket, despite having been in office for the past three and a half years.
The Harris-Walz campaign has framed their ticket as a “New Way Forward,” a slogan which formed the title of the vice president’s policy program released ahead of the September 11 debate between the two candidates.
Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th Annual Leadership Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on September 18, 2024 in Washington, DC. On Tuesday, Republican Congressman Buddy Carter accused Harris of running away from her record as vice president, comparing her to “OJ going across the country looking for the real killer.”
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On Saturday, Walz told rallygoers in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that the Trump–Vance campaign was attempting to “instill fear” in Americans, before saying: “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can’t afford four more years of this.”
The comment has drawn criticism from conservative outlets for its apparent irony, given that Donald Trump has not been in office since January 2021.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris campaign for comment.
Carter went on to say that it was the policies of Kamala Harris that “have gotten us into the condition we’re in now: with high inflation, with a border that’s not secure – we’re not respected on the world stage.”
Carter himself has been a consistent supporter of Trump over the course of the former president’s political career.
In December 2020, he was among 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to support a lawsuit filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, which sought to contest the results of the 2020 election, and the results of voting in the swing states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In 2021, Carter called on the Biden administration to reinstate Trump’s immigration program, including the “Stay in Mexico” policy, suspended by Biden on his first day in office.
House Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) during a committee hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. Carter told Fox News on Tuesday that Americans would vote “according to their pocket books” in November.
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Carter added that American’s will vote “according to their pocket books” in November, and claimed that the inflation overseen by Biden and Harris would win the secure for the former president.
While inflation has recently cooled to a three-year low of 2.5 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) most recent CPI Index reading, Americans are still paying around 20 percent more for goods and services since Biden entered office.
According to the BLS, $100 in January 2021 has the same purchasing power as $120.34 in August 2024.
Carter went on to claim that Americans were better off under Trump than Biden, and that this would secure Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes for the former president come November.
Georgia, which Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, is currently leaning Republican, according to the latest polling averages from FiveThirtyEight, which show Trump leading the vice president 48.2 percent to 46.8.
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