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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is under fire after the Democrat presidential candidate erupted into laughter when a man claimed President Donald Trump’s actions are “mentally retarded.”

The exchange transpired Friday at a town hall in New Hampshire when a man who said he was from Chennai, India went on a tirade claiming the president is racist.

“Somehow a racist bigot gets into the White House and then he says you’re not my color you need to go back to your own country,” the man lamented. “So I am scared for the country.”

“I am scared for the people of color in this country,” the man continued, prompting applause from the audience.

He then asked Harris what she would do to “diminish” Trump’s “mentally retarded” actions.

“Well said, well said,” Harris said as she broke out into laughter.

“I plan to win this election, I’ll tell you that,” Harris responded. “It’s going to be about working as hard as I possibly can to get there, because over the course of this next year that’s what it’s going to take to unseat him. Thank you for having the courage to stand up and say it is that there are a lot of people living with extreme fear right now in our country, extreme fear.”

Footage of her laughing about the president being “mentally retarded” ignited backlash when it surfaced on social media.

We reported on Harris’ original response during the NH town hall:

https://lauraloomer.us/2019/09/07/watch-kamala-agrees-that-trump-and-his-supporters-are-mentally-retarded/#.XXZ2gyhKiUk
https://twitter.com/kendallybrown/status/1170396965043093504?s=20

When pressed by reporters on why she chuckled at the man’s use of derogatory language to characterize Trump, Harris backtracked, claiming she didn’t hear what he said until her staff played the video.

“When my staff played the video from my town hall yesterday, it was upsetting,” she tweeted. “I didn’t hear the words the man used in that moment, but if I had I would’ve stopped and corrected him. I’m sorry. That word and others like it aren’t acceptable. Ever.” 

“I would never condone that kind of language being spoken by anybody about anybody. It is offensive. I have worked my entire career to do a number of things including to ensure our disability community receives the dignity and the rights that they deserve,” the senator told NBC News that.

In an interview with CBS she lashed out on the “offensive” man who asked the question.

“I heard him talk about the other stuff and then that came later and it was not something that I really heard or processed or I in any way condone. That’s for sure,” she said. “It’s offensive and you would think that in the year 2019, people would have a better understanding of how hurtful a term like that can be; but also the history behind it, which is a history of really ignoring the needs and the realities and the capacity of our disability community.”

Harris was also widely rebuked after the California Senator tried to frame herself as the pro-weed candidate, telling Charlamagne tha God, host of Power 105.1’s Breakfast Club, that she frequently smoked marijuana because her family is from Jamaica. Meanwhile, she notoriously cracked down on marijuana during her tenure as District Attorney of San Francisco and as California Attorney General.

Harris opposed Proposition 19 in 2010, which would have legalized recreational marijuana and allowed the federal government to crackdown on legal medicinal dispensaries, increasing convictions of drug dealers from 56 percent to 74 percent within just three years as district attorney, the Washington Examiner reports.

https://twitter.com/ali/status/1145436878071586817?s=20