Lara Trump, a senior adviser for her father-in-law President Donald Trump's campaign, Tuesday slammed potential Joe Biden running mate Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., for having a "fondness and affection for communists."
"She says she was highly influenced by communists, but this just goes to show you exactly who Joe Biden is," Trump told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "While he's trying to present himself oftentimes as a moderate Democrat, do not be fooled."
Bass, a frontrunner for Biden's pick for a running mate, has come under fire for giving keynote speeches at socialist forums in the 1980s and 1990s and her past work in Fidel Castro’s Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade, a group that has organized annual trips to Cuba for left-leaning Americans since 1969. The Miami Herald reports Bass first visited Cuba in 1973 with the brigade, returned through the 1970s, visited three times while in Congress, and went with President Barack Obama to visit the island in 2016.
Trump also said she does not buy "for a second" Bass' statement that while she was a community organizer, she spoke at hundreds of events and their sponsors were not her focus.
"Her own words are very clear and she says again, she was highly influenced by communists," said Trump, adding that Bass spoke "very fondly" of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
"It is incredibly scary to think about what could happen if Joe Biden, whoever he decides to choose as his running mate, gets control of the White House ... you take Joe Biden at his word because he signed a unity manifesto with the self-proclaimed socialist himself, Bernie Sanders," said Trump. "That is where this party stands now, so it doesn't matter if this is his nominee as his running mate or not," she added. "What we know about Joe Biden and what we know about the Democrat Party is they are so far left now people are leaving that party in droves."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.