GOP Rep. Tim Burchett Calls Kamala Harris A ‘DEI Vice President’

On Monday, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennesse) criticized Vice President Kamala Harris on social media, labeling her a “DEI vice president” – a reference to “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs – after President Joe Biden endorsed her as his successor on the Democratic ticket.

“The incompetency level is at an all-time high in Washington,” Burchett wrote on X. “The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president.”

Burchett included a clip from his NewsNation interview in the post, where he expanded on his criticism of Harris and Democratic support for her.

“The best they can do is Kamala Harris. She was a disaster on the border. I don’t know if she can find the border with a compass and a map. And so, I think the Democrats are making their bed and they’re gonna have to lay in it,” he said.

Burchett has previously criticized Harris using DEI as a disparaging term.

In a brief interview on Monday, he referred to her as “a DEI hire” and noted that during the 2020 campaign, Biden said “he was going to hire a black female for vice president.”

“What about white females? What about any other group?” questioned Burchett.

Burchett, a longtime state legislator in Tennessee and former Knox County mayor who was first elected to Congress in 2018, also used a DEI attack line to describe Harris in a Newsmax interview earlier this month.

“When I hear her talk, I just scratch my head and think this is what DEI is really about. It clearly is. She checks all the boxes. She’ll say she’s of Indian descent one day, then she’ll say she’s of black descent. It’s just box-checking,” said Burchett about Harris, who is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.

The Tennessee congressman, one of eight House Republicans who voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) as House speaker last year, also leveled DEI criticism during a heated House committee hearing on Monday about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

“You are a DEI horror story,” Burchett told Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

After the attempted assassination of Trump, conservatives have widely criticized Cheatle, a 27-year veteran of the agency, as unqualified for the role and arguing that female agents on Trump’s Secret Service team were physically incapable of protecting him.

The comments directed at Cheatle reflect a broader trend among conservative lawmakers and allies, who have recently attributed various disasters – such as Boeing airplane issues and the Baltimore bridge collapse – to DEI programs.