Former President Donald Trump Thursday posted a photograph of Vice President Kamala Harris wearing an Indian sari as he continued to push false racially charged claims that the Democratic presidential candidate isn’t really Black.
A day after accusing Harris of only recently claiming Black heritage, the Trump leaned into the controversy by sharing the photo of Harris wearing traditional Indian attire alongside her mother and maternal relatives.
“Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago! Trump wrote on his social media site.”Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated,”
The message came as Trump and his campaign showed no signs of backing away from the firestorm controversy he launched during a contentious 35-minute sparring match with reporters at the National Association of Black Journalists.
Trump’s campaign posted a headline depicting Harris as the “first Indian-American senator” elected from California as he addressed a rally in Pennsylvania.
J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, praised Trump for having the courage to respond honestly to tough questions and slammed Harris as a “chameleon.”
Harris’s father is a Black immigrant from Jamaica and she has always proudly claimed both Black and South Asian heritage. She attended Howard University, a historically Black college, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically Black sorority.
Like most mixed-race people, Harris says there is nothing to be ashamed of about having roots in more than one culture or continent.
Moderate Republicans Thursday distanced themselves from Trump’s jibe as pundits branded the statement as an unforced error that could fuel Democratic political momentum.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu joined Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in trashing Trump for the divisive and untrue claim.
“The path to victory in November is not won through character attacks or personal insults,” Sununu tweeted Thursday.
Hogan, a sometimes critic of Trump who is running a competitive race in deep-blue Maryland, called Trump’s remarks about Harris’s identity “unacceptable and abhorrent.”
“The American people deserve better,” said Hogan.
Even Trump allies in Congress declined to back his outrageous claim.
“We should spend less time talking about race and more time talking about how we’re going to get people to work,” conservative Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, told Politico.
Political analysts quickly branded Trump’s effort to focus on Harris’s identity a blunder and predicted it would boost her already surging political momentum.
“Trump has far stronger arguments to use than her mixed racial background, which many people can identify with,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican strategist, who suggested Trump should instead focus on tying Harris to Biden.
Scott Jennings, another GOP strategist, said Trump “crapped the bed” with the NABJ debacle and predicted his campaign would seek to quickly move back to better attacks like the economy and the southern border.
Despite the criticism, Trump has benefitted in the past from injecting racially divisive issues into campaigns.
He famously championed the “birther” lies that claimed former President Obama wasn’t really born in the U.S. That smear was in part designed to divide Black American voters by convincing them that Obama was somehow different from them.
The attacks on Harris come as Trump is hoping to expand his paltry support among Black voters.
He won an estimated 9% of the Black vote in 2020 but some polls have predicted he could score a much bigger share this time, especially among Black men.
Those hopes are likely overblown now that Harris has replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard bearer and is running to make history as the first Black woman in the White House.
