Houston – Treatment In a massive auditorium filled with thousands of black women dressed in royal blue and gold — the colors of Sigma Gamma Rho, a historically black sorority that held its annual gala in Houston on Wednesday — Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged the ugly and unbalanced speech former President Donald Trump had given hours earlier at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago.
During a panel discussion moderated by three female reporters, Trump questioned Harris's race, suggesting she had “transformed” to black as a matter of political convenience.
ABC News reporter Rachel Scott asked the former president about Republican efforts to derogatorily describe Harris as a “diversity, equity and inclusion staffer” — a smear intended to portray the former vice president and U.S. senator as someone chosen for a job not for her skills or accomplishments, but because she caters to a specific demographic.
Instead of distancing himself from the caricature, Trump launched an even uglier attack, questioning whether Harris was black at all. “She’s always been Indian, and she’s always been promoting Indian heritage,” he said. “I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago when she came out as black, and now she wants to be known as black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?”
Harris responded to Trump's comments about her race — one of a series of startling exchanges he had during the controversial 34-minute interview — at the 60th annual Sigma Gamma Rho International Bowling Expo.
“This afternoon, Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. It was the same old show: division and disrespect. And let me just say that the American people deserve better.”
“The American people deserve a leader who speaks the truth,” Harris continued. “A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us—they are a fundamental source of our strength.”
The Trump campaign already appears intent on capitalizing on Trump’s remarks rather than walking them back — a sign that the campaign believes his racist, ill-intentioned attacks on Harris will be politically beneficial.
Just hours after his interview — before the former president arrived at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania — a Business Insider headline flashed on a screen at the rally: “Kamala Harris of California Becomes First Indian-American U.S. Senator.” By then, Trump had already posted a video on Truth Social of Harris cooking with actress Mindy Kaling, and talking about her South Asian heritage. He captioned it: “Crazy Kamala says she’s Indian, not black. Big deal. Totally false. She’s exploiting everyone, including her ethnicity!” Trump didn’t revisit the comments onstage at the rally, but his lawyer Alina Habba tried, awkwardly declaring at one point: “Unlike you, Kamala, I know my roots. I know where I come from.”
Trump has a long history of this type of attack: He exploited ill-intentioned “doubts” about Barack Obama’s birth certificate for years — a campaign that ultimately paved the way for his 2016 presidential run. On Wednesday, far-right Trump supporter Laura Loomer tweeted that she shared a copy of Harris’s birth certificate, writing that it “proves she is not black.” She added, “Donald Trump is right. Kamala Harris is not black and never was.”
The attacks on Harris began years ago, encouraged by right-wing agitator Ali Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Alexander tweeted in 2019: “Kamala Harris insinuates she is descended from black American slaves. She is not. She is descended from Jamaican slave owners. That’s fine. She is not black American. Period.” Donald Trump Jr. retweeted her at the time.
At a fundraiser in Maine, Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff — the target of recent faith-based attacks from Trump — dismissed the former president's comments as a “distraction.”
“We can’t be distracted by Hannibal Lecter,” Emhoff said, referring to Trump’s bizarre penchant for fictional cannibalism. “Even the insults that were directed at me and my wife…were meant to distract us and get us to talk about it.”
The Trump campaign is in desperate need of a distraction: After weeks of vitriol against his running mate, J.D. Vance, the Trump campaign should be grateful for any well-deserved media opportunity that doesn’t involve questions about whether his running mate has had sex on a couch or whether he has declared “war” on broad swaths of the American electorate.
Vance, a father of three mixed-race children, laughed at Trump’s comments about Harris’ race at a rally in Arizona on Wednesday. “I thought it was hysterical,” Vance said. “I think he was referring to the fundamentally chameleon nature of Kamala Harris.”
Harris is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an Indian-born breast cancer researcher, and Donald Harris, a Jamaican-born economist. The couple met in Berkeley, California, where they were active in a legendary black intellectual study group at UC Berkeley. Harris herself was born in Oakland, and went on to study at Howard University, a historically black college, where she became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha—one of the historically black “Divine Nine” sororities and fraternities.
She has spoken often about her black heritage, including on the popular Breakfast Club radio show in 2019. She said, “I am black, and I am proud to be black. I was born black. I will die black, and I will not make excuses for anyone because they do not understand.”
