Donald Trump implied Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris had decided to “turn Black” for political purposes, attacking his Democratic White House rival during a confrontational and inflammatory exchange with African American media in Chicago.
The Republican former president’s provocation fueled the 78-year-old’s rage at Harris, whom he erroneously accused of identifying as Indian but then “all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.”
Harris, who has always identified as Black and graduated from a historically Black university, “was always of Indian heritage” but “happened to turn Black,” Trump said at a National Association of Black Journalists meeting.
“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Trump’s identity assault was at the heart of a hostile interaction with Black reporters, one of whom he berated for asking about his history of offensive remarks about Black people.
“I think it’s disgraceful,” he said of the questioning. “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”
The combative remarks by Trump, who has been eager to improve his performance with Black voters, are likely to send shockwaves through the 2024 White House contest.
They come as the former president, who was convicted of felony fraud two months ago for hush money payments to a porn star, battles to devise a new plan with less than 100 days until the election.
He will hold a campaign rally later Wednesday in Pennsylvania, a battleground state where he nearly escaped assassination attempts earlier this month.
The Republican presidential campaign was thrown into disarray on July 21 when President Joe Biden, 81, quit his candidacy, leaving Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Since then, the 59-year-old Harris has increased her favorability ratings and raised $200 million in campaign contributions.
Trump, who had made Biden’s health a central campaign issue, now faces someone nearly two decades his junior, a trailblazer who became the country’s first Black, female, and South Asian-origin vice president.
The seismic shift has prompted Trump and the Republicans to quickly rethink their strategy, and it appears they are having difficulty deciding on a line of attack.
As “Lyin’ Kamala,” “Laughin’ Kamala” and “Crazy Kamala” all failed to stick, Trump’s broadsides have become increasingly incendiary and untethered to reality.
Over the last week, Trump has falsely accused the vice president of being anti-Semitic — despite her decade-long marriage to a Jewish man, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff — and has claimed outrageously that she supports the murder of newborn babies.
The Harris campaign slammed Trump’s Wednesday remarks as “personal attacks and insults” and the latest example of “the same hostility he has shown throughout his life.”
Harris, whose mother was an Indian immigrant and whose father was Jamaican, has long identified as Black.
“My mother was very well aware that she was raising two Black girls to be two Black women, and she did that instilling in us pride in our culture and cultures,” she said in a 2020 Biden-Harris video.
Trump and Republicans have launched more classic political assaults, emphasizing Harris’ pivots on stances she espoused while attempting to carve herself a niche in the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race.
Harris no longer favors eliminating private health insurance or implementing a government gun buyback program. She has also disavowed anti-fracking stances and advocated for the expansion of the Supreme Court.
“San Francisco liberal @VP Kamala Harris can’t decide where she stands on the most basic issues,” Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin posted on X.