In Tuesday evening's presidential debate, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris slammed former president Donald Trump for being overly conciliatory to Chinese president Xi Jinping in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
"But what Donald Trump did—let's talk about this—with COVID is he actually thanked President Xi for what he did during COVID," Harris said. "Look at his tweet, 'Thank you, President Xi, exclamation point,' when we know that Xi was responsible for lacking and not giving us transparency about the origins of COVID."
It's a peculiar change for Harris, who was a vocal opponent of referring to COVID-10 as the "China virus" and introduced a resolution in May 2020 condemning "anti-Asian terminology and rhetoric" related to the virus.
"The increased use of anti-Asian rhetoric has resulted in Asian Americans being harassed, assaulted, and scapegoated for the COVID-19 pandemic," states Harris's bill, which more than two dozen other Democratic senators cosponsored.