Republicans scrambled They tried to defend former President Donald Trump's racist lies about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.
Last week, during an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump launched a racist attack on Harris, falsely accusing her of misrepresenting her ethnicity. “She was always Indian, she was just promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago when she turned black… So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she black? I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian the whole time and then all of a sudden, she turned black.”
Trump's vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, who has three mixed-race children, praised the attack and emphasized it: “I thought it was hysterical. I think it pointed to the fundamentally chameleon nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance said Wednesday.
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who is himself a father of mixed-race children, called Trump's comments a “phony argument,” saying on ABC's “This Week”: this week On Sunday, Donalds said, “I don’t really care, most people don’t care.” But Donalds then went on to repeat Trump’s insults about Harris’ racial identity and his lying about an Associated Press (AP) story from when Harris was first elected to the Senate.
“When Kamala Harris entered the U.S. Senate, it was the Associated Press that said she was the first Indian-American senator,” Donalds said. “That was a lot of promotion when she entered the Senate. Now that she’s running nationally, the campaign has obviously changed. They’re talking a lot about her father’s heritage and her black identity. It doesn’t really matter.” [former] “The president almost never mentioned it.”
What the Associated Press actually wrote was this: “Harris will enter the chamber as the first Indian woman elected to a seat in the Senate.” The second black woman“, after Carol Moseley Braun, who served one term after being elected in 1992.” (emphasis added).
Donald continued to obfuscate and blame Harris for “massive inflation” and her “failure as border czar,” even though fact-checkers have called Republican claims that Harris was Biden’s “border czar” misleading.
But George Stephanopoulos wouldn’t let Donald get away with lying about Harris’ racial background. “You’ve repeated the insult again. If it doesn’t matter, why do you all continue to question her identity? She’s always been identified as a black woman. She’s mixed race. She has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She’s always been identified as both. Why are you questioning that?”
“This is something that’s being discussed a lot on social media right now,” Donalds said. “A lot of people are trying to figure this out.”
“Sir, wait a minute, you just did it again! Why do you insist on questioning her ethnic identity?” Stephanopoulos asked angrily.
This racist point has long been debunked. In 2020, the Associated Press conducted a fact check that ruled the claims false. “Kamala Harris has for years identified herself as black and Indian American,” wrote the AP’s Amanda Seitz. “In interviews, she has regularly talked about how her mother, who was from India, raised her as a black woman.”
“George, now that you’re done yelling at me, let me answer,” Donalds angrily responded to Stephanopoulos. The congressman again sidestepped the question to say that Trump had spent time attacking Harris’s record at his Saturday rally (during his Saturday rally, the former president also spread lies about election fraud and welcomed the appointment of MAGA loyalists to the Georgia State Board of Elections).
“I know you guys like to hang on to this thing that he talks about in a joking or serious way for a minute or so, but what you haven’t addressed is Kamala Harris’ list of failings,” Donalds said.
Stephanopoulos replied, “So questioning someone’s racial identity for two minutes is acceptable?”
Donalds again falsely claimed that the Associated Press “excited” the claim that Harris was the first Indian woman elected to the Senate, repeatedly ignoring that in the same sentence they called her “the second black woman” elected to the Senate. “None of this matters to the American people,” Donalds added.
“If it doesn’t matter,” Stephanopoulos replied, “I don’t understand why you keep repeating that, why [former] The president keeps repeating that, why are those who provide [former] “The president yesterday kept repeating that.”
“George, actually, I’m not the one repeating that. George, you’re the one bringing it up now,” Donalds replied.
“Sir, you did it three times. In every answer you gave me — let me finish, sir — in every answer you gave me, you repeated the same insult,” Stephanopoulos said.
Donalds then tried to get Stephanopoulos to change the subject, but the anchor continued: “The AP didn’t say Kamala Harris isn’t black. She’s mixed race. She’s Indian. She’s black. You keep repeating… the insult. I don’t understand why you and… [former] “Mr. President, you wouldn't say this is wrong, and you've confirmed that now to our audience.”
“Let's go,” Donalds pleaded after five minutes of back and forth.
On CBS facing the nationRepublican Sen. Tom Cotton got away with it relatively easily when Ed O'Keefe asked him about these attacks on Harris.
“Are you personally okay with him wondering if she's black?” O'Keefe asked Cotton.
“Ed,” Cotton said, “didn’t say it mattered how she identified as a race. He said explicitly that he didn’t care. It was okay. It was okay. It was okay. She identified as a dangerous liberal from San Francisco. That’s the danger to the American people.”
“Let's move on to other things,” O'Keefe said, allowing Cotton to escape his lie.
But Republicans must confront the harmful and vile racist lies being spread by their party’s nominee, especially because they are part of the Trump campaign’s broader strategy. rolling stone Reports indicate that Trump and his aides planned these racist attacks, even as House Republican leadership pleaded with its members to avoid the subject of Harris' race, according to Politico.
“It wasn’t an accident, it was intentional,” said a Trump confidant. rolling stone from the attacks. “We are behind [former] “The president is one hundred percent.”
