Harris to ABC's David Muir: Trump insults are distractions from 'neglect, negligence and harm'

In an exclusive interview with ABC "World News Tonight" Anchor David Muir on Friday, Sen. Kamala Harris brushed off some of the insults directed at her by President Donald Trump, and said they reflect the president's attempts to "distract the American people."

"President Trump has referred to you as 'nasty,' a sort of 'madwoman,' a 'disaster,' the 'meanest,' 'most horrible,' 'most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.' How do you define what you hear from the president?" Muir asked Harris.

The California senator responded, "I think that there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day. That is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people."

"And incompetence," former Vice President Joe Biden added, jumping in to defend his new running mate. "The idea that he would say something like that. No president -- no president -- has ever said anything like that. No president's ever used those words."

"And no president has said people coming out of fields with torches and spewing anti-Semitic bile and met by people who oppose them, and someone dies, and he says they're good people on both sides. No president of the United States has ever said anything like that ever," Biden continued, referring to the clashes between protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that he said inspired his third run for the presidency.

Watch "The Ticket: The First Interview," a special edition of "20/20," airing Sunday, Aug. 23 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, in which "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir and "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts conduct the first joint interviews with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris.