Trump under fire for ‘overtly racist’ comment about Kamala Harris

Senior GOP figures issue rare rebuke to candidate over ‘self-inflicted wound’

Donald Trump’s claims that Kamala Harris had only recently “turned black” have been criticised by his fellow Republicans.
In a rare rebuke of their presidential nominee, a number of Republicans voiced concerns over the remarks, which have been condemned as racist.
“I think the better approach is to focus on the policies of Kamala Harris – that’s what I’ve been talking about,” said Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the GOP campaign chief.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri also told reporters it was “not a great idea for either of the parties to be playing racial identity politics”.
And Thom Tillis, the North Carolina senator, said he “clearly didn’t like what he heard from Trump”.
Appearing at a convention for black journalists on Wednesday, Trump asked if Ms Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democrat nominee, was Indian or black.
“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 black,” he continued.
Ms Harris responded by saying the American people deserve better than such “divisiveness” and “disrespect.”
Trump, 78, then doubled down on his controversial remarks. On his Truth Social page, he posted a previously published photograph of Ms Harris’s mother’s family wearing traditional Indian clothing.
“Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago,” he wrote with apparent sarcasm. “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.”
JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, piled on at a campaign rally on Wednesday evening, mocking the way Ms Harris had spoken at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the battleground states.
“And you guys saw yesterday she was in Georgia, and she put on a southern accent for a Georgia audience,” said Mr Vance. “She grew up in Vancouver. What the hell is going on here? She is not who she pretends to be.”
Ms Harris, 59, is of mixed race. Her father is Jamaican and her mother Indian. She spent her teenage years in Montreal, where her mother, a breast cancer researcher, worked at a hospital and university.
She served as Attorney General of California before being elected as senator for the state.
After barely 10 days of campaigning, she is running level with Trump in battleground states, and Republicans are realising they face a tougher fight than most anticipated.
Politico reported that “virtually” every Republican it contacted was “flat-out distraught by what they perceive as a self-inflicted wound not only for Trump, but for Republicans down the ballot”.
Without mentioning Trump by name, former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a GOP candidate for the Senate, said it is “unacceptable and abhorrent to attack Vice-President Harris or anyone’s racial identity”.
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist, told CNN that Trump “cr—d the bed” in his appearance at the NABJ convention.
“The only question is whether he’s gonna roll around in it or get up and change the sheets,” he added.
Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator for Alaska, listed a series of recent mishaps by Trump and Mr Vance when talking about Ms Harris recently.
“Childless cat women, DEI candidates, now, ‘Is she black? Is she Indian?’” she said
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Democrats also condemned the comments. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, termed Mr Trump’s appearance a “meltdown” that showed he was unfit for office.
Mark Kelly, a senator from Arizona and one of the favourites to become Ms Harris’s running mate, said the remarks were “overtly racist”.
Another potential pick, JB Pritzker, said Trump’s comments showed “racism coming through him”.
This is not the first time Trump has been accused of race-baiting. For many years he spearheaded the “birther” movement that falsely claimed Barack Obama was not born in the United States and thus not eligible to run for president. 
Believing it was “a distraction” for Americans, Mr Obama released his full birth certificate showing he had been born in Hawaii as he had said.
In 2016, while running for president, Trump finally admitted as much, saying: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.”
 
 
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