President Donald Trump said Joe Biden "didn't respond great" to attacks from Kamala Harris during the first Democratic primary debates. | Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images White House Trump: Kamala Harris got 'too much credit' for Biden attack 'It wasn’t that outstanding,' the president said at a news conference in Osaka, Japan. 'I think probably he was hit harder than he should have been hit.'

OSAKA, Japan — Sen. Kamala Harris “received too much credit” for her attack on Joe Biden at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, President Donald Trump said Saturday.

“I think she was given too much credit for what she did. It wasn’t that outstanding,” Trump said at a news conference in Osaka, Japan, where he was attending the G-20 summit of the world’s largest economies. “I think probably he was hit harder than he should have been hit.”


Harris was the most discussed candidate following Thursday’s debate, the second of two debates this week that featured 20 Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination. In particular, the California lawmaker received attention for her decision to go after the former vice president over his recent remarks about working with well-known segregationist senators during his time in Congress. She described Biden’s comments as “hurtful.”

Harris also used the moment to press Biden on his 1970s stance on federally mandated school busing programs, pointedly mentioning that she was part of a busing program during her childhood in Berkeley, Calif.

Biden’s response sought to clarify that he never opposed voluntary busing and supported busing programs enacted at the local level. He also stressed that he supported “federal action to address root causes of segregation in our schools and our communities.”

“I think she’s getting far too much credit for what she said,” Trump repeated on Saturday. “It was right out of the can. It was right out of the box. He didn’t respond great. This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as they portend it to be.”

When asked if Harris would be a tough opponent in the general election, Trump said some of the candidates who are expected to be the toughest are actually the weakest. “You never know who’s going to be tough,” he said. “You never know.”

When asked about his views on busing, Trump said he will be releasing his own plan related to the issue in a couple months. He declined to elaborate but predicted it would be “surprising to a lot of people.”