Kamala Harris on Trump: ‘No previous US president has bowed down to a Russian dictator before’

Kamala Harris on Saturday criticized Donald Trump’s cajoling of Russia to attack Nato allies of the US who don’t pay their dues, saying the American people would never accept a president who bowed to a dictator.

The vice-president’s comments, in a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC’s The Weekend, represent some of the strongest criticism to date of Trump’s apparent allegiance to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The Joe Biden White House has previously called the remarks by the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination – made last week at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania – “appalling and unhinged”.

“The idea that the former president of the US would say that he – quote – encourages a brutal dictator to invade our allies, and that the United States of America would simply stand by and watch,” Harris said. “No previous US president, regardless of their party, has bowed down to a Russian dictator before.

“We are seeing an example of something I just believe that the American people would never support, which is a US president, current or former, bowing down with those kinds of words, and apparently an intention of conduct, to a Russian dictator.”

Harris, who was interviewed in Germany, where she is attending the Munich Security Conference, also attacked House Republicans who are stalling the Biden administration’s $95bn foreign military aid package.

The bill includes money for Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. But it has been disconnected from US border security measures that Republicans insisted they wanted – then voted down.

“We need to do our part [to support Ukraine], and we have been very clear that Congress must act,” she said.

“I think all members of Congress, and all elected leaders, would understand