(COMBO) This combination of file pictures created on August 3, 2024 shows US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaking on March 26, 2024, in Raleigh, North Carolina; and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking in the first presidential debate with US President Joe Biden in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27, 2024. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski and ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
Washington: Kamala Harris said Monday she would take a cognitive test in response to jabs from Donald Trump, and challenged the ex-president to take one too as mental fitness becomes a battle line in the White House race.
Harris has repeatedly said her 78-year-old Republican opponent, now the oldest presidential candidate in US history, is increasingly "unhinged" and unfit to lead the country again.
Trump has meanwhile called the 60-year-old Democratic vice president stupid, attacking her IQ in his pitch to voters in a race that the polls suggest is effectively tied.
Harris was asked in a CBS interview segment released Monday if she would take a cognitive test, as Trump had called for on social media.
"Sure. I would challenge him to take the same one," the vice president said.
"This is what he has resorted to. I think he is actually increasingly unstable and unhinged and has resorted to name calling because he actually has no plan for the American people," she added.
Harris's attacks on Trump's fitness focused last week on revelations from his longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly.
The decorated Iraq veteran told The New York Times that Trump, while president, remarked that "Hitler did some good things too" and that instead of the US military's leadership, he "wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had."
Harris told reporters that Trump's alleged conduct was "deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous" and she later said she agreed with Kelly's description of Trump being a "fascist."
