Donald Trump tried to explain one of his nicknames for Democratic rival Kamala Harris to New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi.
But it did not go well.
Nuzzi recalled — in a lengthy article published on Monday — how the former president boasted to her about his disparaging “Kamabla” moniker for the vice president during an interview at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump first deployed the slur in August.
The Republican presidential nominee “gave me an expectant look, but I was confused,” wrote Nuzzi.
Trump repeated the insult and described it, per Nuzzi, as “just a … mixed-up … pile of words. Like she [Harris] is.” He then “stopped what he was saying and stared at me with a look of grave concern and disappointment,” Nuzzi added.
Nuzzi would “have to see it to really understand,” Trump reportedly told her.
Nuzzi in her article said it was maybe “a nickname meant for cyberbullying, not for conversation.”
“There are those that think it’s good … “ Trump reportedly insisted to the journalist.
Nuzzi asked Trump if he was behind the insult. “He laughed a deflated kind of laugh, as if to minimise the importance of the answer,” she wrote. Trump admitted he had and comes up “with a lot of things.”
But, as Nuzzi noted, the name “was soon retired.”