Harris appeared alongside Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Tuesday as the two held a roundtable discussion with student leaders at South Carolina’s Claflin University, a historically Black college. During her opening comments, she began listing some of the ways the Biden administration has responded to the demands of young Americans, including helping to support young entrepreneurs.
“Young people said, ‘We are entrepreneurial, we got ideas, we are innovators, but we know that there is a real divide, in particular, a racial wealth gap in America, on many levels, including when it comes to access to capital,’” Harris told the students.
However, that’s where it began to fall apart for the 57-year-old presidential co-pilot.
“So we invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community, and that access to capital should not be a barrier to innovation and creativity and what we know those small businesses are, which is part of the economic lifeblood of a community and, by extension, all of society.”
Her repetition of the word “community” three times in one sentence struck observers and critics as unnecessary, cumbersome and confusing, as well as indicative of a lack of planning on her part.
"You would think by now she’d have a copy editor to say, 'Maybe we shouldn’t repeat the same word five times in the same sentence,’” author Matthew Betley joked.
One person suggested that in reality, Harris’ speechwriters had played a joke on her, while another quipped that “community” was the “word of the day.
Another recalled how fast food company Chick-fil-a had recently gotten into hot water for using the word “community” in a tweet that seemed to suggest its spicy chicken items were made specifically to cater to the tastes of Black Americans.
“What a babbling Buffon almost as painful to watch as clueless Joe,” one user put it.
The US president, 22 years her senior, is similarly regularly criticized for his public speaking abilities, although more so in the context of his advanced years and a marked deterioration in his skill from a decade ago.
Harris is no stranger to fumbling her words either, though, being regularly accused of speaking gibberish or “word salads,” or jumbles of words that make no sense.