Trump Takes Shot At Kamala Harris When Asked If She Was On The Ticket Due To Race

Former President Donald Trump took a shot at Vice President Kamala Harris during a Wednesday appearance at a media forum in Chicago when a reporter asked if she had been placed on the Democratic ticket because she was a black woman.

Trump made the comments during an interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner, Semafor reporter Kadia Goba and ABC reporter Rachel Scott, hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists. Trump was asked by Scott if he believed Harris was on the Democratic ticket due to being a black woman, with the former president responding that he wasn’t aware she was black until a few years ago due to her Indian heritage.

WATCH:

“Well, I can say no, maybe it’s a little bit different,” Trump said. “So, I have known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much. She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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?”

“I respect either one,” Trump said as one of the panelists told him Harris always identified as 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 and became a black person.”

Harris’s official biography on the White House website mentions her mother’s Indian ancestry and touts her as the first black Vice President.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized Trump’s comments during the Wednesday press briefing.

“What you just read out to me is repulsive, is insulting and no one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify,” Jean-Pierre said.