Trump doubles down on claims Kamala ‘recently’ decided to be black

Former President Donald Trump revisited his attacks on Kamala Harris’ racial identity, saying in a Thursday press conference, saying the burden was on her to explain it and claiming she was being ‘disrespectful’ to Blacks and people of Indian descent.

Trump got asked in his hour long presser Thursday how he could have said the Demoratic presidential nominee ‘happened to turn Black’ – a comment he made during a contentious interview at a Black journalists association event. A reporter noted that Harris’ father is Jamaican-American and that she went to a historically black college – Howard University – wondering why it was accurate to say she recently decided to be Black.

(Her mother is an immigrant to the U.S. from India .) ‘Well, well, you’ll have to ask her that question because she’s the one that said it. I didn’t say it,’ Trump began. ‘So you will have to ask her. And I very much appreciate that question. But you’ll have to ask her.’

Then he continued to press the issue, while mentioning his own $6,000 in campaign donations he personally made to her when she was California’s attorney general.

‘But I’ve known her for a long time. I actually contributed to her campaign a long time ago, because I was a developer. I contributed to lots of campaigns of Democrats, Republicans and some were liberal and some were conservative,’ Trump said, before doubling down on his criticism of his opponent. ‘But you’ll have to ask her about that. But to me, it doesn’t matter. But to her from her standpoint, I think it’s very disrespectful to both really, whether it’s Indian or Black. I think it’s very disrespectful to both. To me, it doesn’t matter,’ he said.

Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance has called Harris a ‘chameleon’ and defended Trump’s earlier comments. ‘I think he was observing the basic foundational reality that Kamala Harris pretends to be something different depending on what audience she’s speaking to,’ Vance said after Trump’s explosive comments.

Trump first made the attack in an interview at a black journalists’ association. ‘She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?’ Trump said.

Minutes after Trump’s lengthy presser ended, Harris called out ‘perversion’ at an event with UAW leaders and members in Detroit. ‘You know, there’s some perversion that’s happened in our country in the last several years, where there’s a suggestion that somehow strength is about making people feel small – making people feel alone,’ she said.

She made the remark after pointing out similarities in her upbringing in Oakland, California with running mate Tim Walz, who hails from Nebraska. ‘We’re not falling for these folks who are trying to divide us,’ she said.

Trump’s attacks come as polls have shown Harris gaining among black and younger voters after stepping in for President Joe Biden in the race for the White House.