As it became clear on Sunday that Vice President Kamala Harris is the front-runner to replace President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, pro-Donald Trump conservatives went on TV to fiercely condemn her position on sipping devices.
“I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws, for goodness sake,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign, told NBC. “Whereas Joe Biden was renting some of the territory on the more extreme left, Kamala Harris owns it.”
In a lengthy monologue on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Harris would “be the single most radical major party candidate to run for election.” He went on to condemn her environmental record, including her previous support for ending the oil and gas drilling practice known as fracking and, of course, reining in the use of plastic straws.
“She wants to ban plastic straws,” Hannity grumbled. “I love my plastic straw. I hate those paper straws. Anyway.”
That the GOP response to Biden dropping out of the 2024 race immediately centered on culture-war grievances wasn’t lost on Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott.
“Republicans are completely lost right now,” McDermott wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “They’re seriously going for the plastic straw attack! Republicans are literally flailing for a message against Kamala Harris.”
It is true that Harris voiced support for banning plastic straws. During a CNN town hall in September 2019, she said “we do need to ban the plastic” but acknowledged that current paper straws are “flimsy” and difficult to drink out of.
“Innovation is a process,” she added. “Let’s encourage innovation.”
A few months before Harris’ comments, then-President Trump was also asked about whether plastic straws should be banned. In response to what he called an “interesting” question, Trump shined light on the broader issue of plastic pollution.
“I do think we have bigger problems than plastic straws,” he said. “You have a little straw, but what about the plates, the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger and they’re made of the same material? The straws are interesting. Everybody focuses on the straws. There’s a lot of other things to focus [on], but it’s an interesting question.”
Around the same time, Trump’s campaign began selling packs of Trump-engraved plastic straws to troll environmentalists. “Liberal paper straws don’t work,” read the campaign merchandise listing. “STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today!”
During his first term in office, Trump and his team often touted their efforts to curb plastic pollution in the ocean — an effort that Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler called “one of the Trump administration’s top environmental priorities.”
Now eyeing a second Trump term in the White House, the MAGA movement is making a monumental deal out of Harris’ measured comments about the need to move away from harmful plastics, which have polluted oceans around the globe.
At a Trump rally in Doral, Florida, earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) defended plastic straws from Harris’ perceived attack.
“Those paper straws suck,” he said. “We don’t want paper straws in America.”