Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign has responded to GOP nominee Donald Trump’s statements at a convention for Black journalists in Chicago on Wednesday, where Trump called into question the vice president’s identity as a Black woman. Harris’ campaign called his hostility “simply a taste of the chaos and division” that Trump’s campaign seeks and what Americans can expect from a second Trump administration.
“The hostility Donald Trump showed onstage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office and throughout his campaign for president as he seeks to regain power and inflict his harmful Project 2025 agenda on the American people,” Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler wrote in a Wednesday press statement.
“Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency — while he failed Black families and left the entire country digging out of the ditch he left us in. Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us,” he added. “Today’s tirade is simply a taste of the chaos and division that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies this entire campaign.
“It’s also exactly what the American people will see from across the debate stage as Vice President Harris offers a vision of opportunity and freedom for all Americans. All Donald Trump needs to do is stop playing games and actually show up to the debate on Sept. 10,” he wrote.
At a live Q&A panel onstage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, Trump’s appearance quickly veered controversial as the candidate began repeating lies about his past policy toward Black communities and in a perplexing moment, began questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ identity as a Black woman.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said from the stage at the Chicago Hilton. “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?”
He continued, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went — she became a Black person. I think somebody should look into that too.”
Harris is of both Jamaican and Indian heritage. She is the first Black woman and the first Asian American to serve as vice president and to run for the presidency.
Trump’s chaotic panel at the NABJ conference, which started over an hour late and was beset by shouts and boos from an angry audience and several falsehoods from the candidate, was cut short by his campaign staff.
