Former US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Kamala Harris decided to “go black” a few years ago. “Is she Indian or is she black? I respect both options, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way until she turned black,” the Republican candidate said of his rival, whom he described as “horrible” in a tense exchange at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), which was held in Chicago. Trump added that until then he had only been aware of the vice president’s Indian heritage. “She changed her mind, and now it turns out that she wants to be known as a black person,” he argued.
Harris is the daughter of immigrants: her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, arrived from India in the early 1960s. Her father, Stanford professor Donald Harris, is African-American and originally from Jamaica. The girl grew up in the black power in Oakland, on the San Francisco Bay Area. He then studied at Howard University, a historic educational center in Washington known as the Black Mecca focused on the education of African-American elites.
Trump agreed to participate in the Chicago event in order to court black voters, who massively supported Joe Biden in the last election and in this campaign showed signs of discontent with the party in the polls prior to Biden’s resignation a couple of Sundays ago. The polls indicate that the idea of Harris at the top of the ballot has improved the expectations of the liberal party among that segment of voters for November.
The event started an hour late. Trump mispronounced Kamala’s name right off the bat (the correct way is co-mmala)something he usually does, and was corrected by the audience. The interview was conducted half by the journalist from ABC News, Rachel Scott, and Kadia Goba, from the web Traffic light. Asked about the candidate’s ability to serve as president of the United States for four more years, the Republican responded by calling the reporter “very rude” and “unkind.”
In a post on his social network, Trump wrote once the meeting was over: “The questions were Rude and Rude, often taking the form of a manifesto, but WE CRUSHED THEM!” The capitalization is his.
His campaign later issued a statement saying: “The rude treatment he received today [Trump] from certain hostile members of the media will have very serious consequences. You would think they would have learned something from their repeated bouts of faux-outrage since President Trump first rode down the escalator in 2015. [acto con el que anunció su intención de aspirar a la Cada Blanca]but some simply refuse to understand it. That will be his downfall in 2024.” The text is signed by Lynne Patton, senior adviser to the campaign.
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The first exchange in Chicago already gave a taste of what was to come. Before Scott asked the opening question, they read out Trump’s past statements, including his claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and examples of the candidate’s treatment of several black journalists in the past.
“Why should African-American voters trust you after you used language like that?” Scott asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question that was this horrible,” the former president replied. “You don’t even say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ You work for ABC News? It’s a fake news network, a terrible station. I love the black people in this country,” Trump said, interrupting Scott. “I think your question is very disgusting… I’ve been the best president for the black people since Abraham Lincoln.”
The interviewers also asked her about the argument that has been spreading in recent weeks among prominent members of the Republican Party and that dismisses Harris’s achievements as the product of affirmative action (the expression used is, in English, “DEI hire”, something like a contract that follows the criteria of “diversity, equity and inclusion”). To that, Trump said: “I honestly have no idea. It could be. There are some.”
The vice president earned her California law degree on her second try. She then worked in the Alameda District Attorney’s office. She won two elections at home: to become District Attorney of San Francisco and to become Attorney General of California. She was then elected Senator in 2016. After a disastrous campaign in the primaries as a candidate for the US presidency in 2020, Biden chose her as his second-in-command. The hardline wing of the Republican Party considers the move by which she succeeded the president at the head of the ticket in November, after his resignation, to be “a palatial coup.” The idea is to denounce that she became the candidate without going through a primary process.
In addition to questioning Harris’s identity, the former president reaffirmed his intention to pardon the insurrectionists who participated in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “If they are innocent, I plan to pardon them,” he said. When asked if he would extend that pardon to those who have been found guilty by a judge, he replied: “Well, they were convicted by a really harsh system.” The interviewers then reminded him that there are videos from that day in which the mob that had attended the then-president’s rally in Washington can be seen hitting the police with flagpoles, among other blunt objects. “Oh really?” Trump then replied.
Harris’ campaign later released a statement saying: “The hostility Donald Trump displayed on stage today is the same hostility he has displayed throughout his life, in his years in the White House, and in his current campaign.”
The NABJ’s plan to invite Trump sparked controversy before the Chicago convention. Harris will not attend the convention due to logistical issues, including the process of choosing her vice presidential candidate, whose identity is expected to be known before Tuesday.
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