Former President Donald J. Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s identity as a Black woman on Wednesday in front of an audience of Black journalists, suggesting his opponent for the presidency had adopted her racial profile as a political “turn.”
“She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she went, she became a Black person,” he said of Ms. Harris, whose mother is Indian American and whose father is Black.
The former president was addressing a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, where Mr. Trump repeated falsehoods about immigration, sparred with reporters over the merits of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and told the group that he was “the best president for the Black population” since Abraham Lincoln.
The event proved to be one of the most unusual appearances of the presidential campaign so far. Mr. Trump has favored friendly appearances with conservative television, radio and podcast hosts, but he had ample warning that the panel awaiting him in Chicago would be tough. Facing three Black women, he insulted the first Black woman on the top of a major-party ticket and seemed perfectly comfortable disparaging his hosts, even as he tried to appeal to Black voters as their best choice for safeguarding Black well-being.
One of his central messages sought to pit Black voters against immigrant communities, as he repeatedly warned that Black workers would lose their jobs to undocumented immigrants unless he is elected in November.
But in the combative appearance, his comments on Ms. Harris stood out. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, called them “repulsive” and “insulting,” adding that “no one has any right to tell someone who they are.”
“She is the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. We have to put some respect on her name, period,” Ms. Pierre added.
From the start, Mr. Trump’s appearance at the convention was contentious. He began by denouncing one of women on the panel, Rachel Scott of ABC News, as “rude” and “nasty,” dismissing her outlet as a “fake news network.” He deflected a question about his promise to pardon the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by saying the Capitol was attacked last week by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Those protesters did deface buildings and burn an American flag, but they were at the Washington train station, not the Capitol.
Asked what he meant when he once said immigrants were taking “Black jobs,” he said: “A Black job is anybody who has a job.”
The half-hour appearance came less than three weeks before Democrats converge on Chicago to formally nominate Ms. Harris and her running mate as the party’s candidates for the White House. For Mr. Trump, it was an opportunity to stake his claim to Black voters that he has insisted he can win over, even as he runs against the first Black woman ever nominated by a major party.
But it was not clear he succeeded. Instead, he attacked his interlocutors, three Black women, particularly Ms. Scott, whom he repeatedly called “nasty.” He disparaged the vice president in clearly racial terms. Not only did he suggest she only recently “became Black” (when in fact, she went to Howard University, a historically Black university, and is a member of a Black women’s sorority), he declined to say whether the vice president had achieved her position based on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“I really don’t know, could be, could be,” he said before suggesting that not all successful Black women were promoted by such means, looking at Harris Faulkner, the Fox News host who was also on the panel. “I know this lady right over there, Harris, is a fantastic person.”
Ms. Faulkner did offer Mr. Trump some relief, bringing up inflation and the assassination attempt on his life.
But Ms. Scott and Kadia Goba, a politics reporter at Semafor, pressed the former president hard — on his promise to give police officers immunity from prosecution, his promise to pardon the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, and the inflammatory statements made in the past by his vice-presidential pick, Senator JD Vance of Ohio.
“I came onto a stage like this and I got treated so rudely,” he complained at one point.
Reporters in the room repeatedly scoffed and gasped as Mr. Trump made disparaging remarks about reporters and repeated falsehoods about immigrants and his policy record for Black communities. At one point, an attendee yelled back to challenge Mr. Trump’s criticisms of Ms. Scott.
The appearance of the Republican presidential nominee had divided the association before it even started. A co-chairwoman of the convention, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, stepped down from her post over it, while a prominent member of the association, April Ryan, warned that Mr. Trump’s White House had threatened Black women.
“The reports of attacks on Black women White House correspondents by the then president of the United States are not myth or conjecture, but fact,” Ms. Ryan, the White House correspondent for The Grio, a media company geared toward Black Americans, wrote in a social media post.
But leaders of the association said journalists could not shy from interviewing major candidates for the presidency. The association invited Ms. Harris but the group’s president, Ken Lemon, said Wednesday morning that she was not available.
“We are in talks about virtual options in the future and are still working to reach an agreement,” he wrote.
For Mr. Trump, there were no downsides: A hostile greeting would feed his efforts to play supporters off the media. A warmer welcome would help his outreach to Black voters.
And combative it was.
Before he took the stage, he disparaged Ms. Harris as he complained on his social media website that the vice president was preparing to address the association remotely.
“They told me and Crazy Kamala Harris that you could not do this Event with ZOOM — It is not allowed or acceptable,” he wrote, inaccurately saying Ms. Harris would address the gathering after all. “Now I am told that she is doing the Event on ZOOM. WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?”
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