Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., another 2020 candidate, called the president "a racist" during an Martin Luther King Jr. Day event last month.
ADVERTISEMENTSen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said she agreed President Donald Trump is a racist in an interview published Tuesday.
"Is President Trump a racist?" a reporter for The Root asked the 2020 presidential candidate in a video interview.
"When you talk about him calling African countries s-hole countries, when you talk about him referring to immigrants as rapists and murderers, I don't think you can reach any other conclusion," Harris responded, a reference to his reported past comments about Haiti and African nations as well as the president's characterizations of Mexican immigrants.
Pressed in a follow-up question on whether she "definitely would agree that he's a racist," she said, "I do, yes. Yes."
This appears to be the furthest the California lawmaker has gone in criticizing the president. In the past, she has excoriated Trump for exacerbating racial tensions.
Ronna McDaniel, the GOP chairwoman, slammed Harris for her remarks, calling the lawmaker "desperate" in a tweet on Tuesday.
"Kamala Harris's latest attack is a disgusting attempt to get attention for her 2020 campaign. From historic lows in African American & Hispanic unemployment to criminal justice reform, @realDonaldTrump has made progress for ALL Americans after years of empty Democrat promises," she wrote.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the president "a racist" during an event commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day last month before he announced his candidacy.
"Today we talked about justice and today we talked about racism. And I must tell you it gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a President of the United States who is a racist," Sanders said in South Carolina.