Hours after Donald Trump’s controversial interview at a National Association of Black Journalists conference, the former president’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt began spinning his incorrect assertions that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black.”
“What this showed is that President Trump is unafraid to show up and to have these difficult and hostile conversations in environments,” Trump’s Leavitt told host Connell McShane on NewsNation on Wednesday night.
“He rightfully pointed out that her parents are Jamaican and Indian heritage. That is a fact,” Leavitt said after McShane questioned her about Trump’s jaw-dropping remarks. Trump did not directly mention Harris’ father Donald J. Harris, a Jamaican-American retired Stanford professor, in his remarks at the NABJ conference.
When pressed by McShane, she repeated the comment. “Her parents are Jamaican and Indian heritage. And Black voters do appreciate President Trump’s authenticity, they do not appreciate the inauthenticity of Kamala Harris and the Joe Biden administration,” she added.
Leavitt tried to steer the conversation towards Trump’s reported success with Black voters. “I don’t think that President Trump is winning a historic margin of Black voters, I know it. Look at the polls,” Leavitt said, avoiding the question of Harris’ background.
“I think they appreciate President Trump’s candor, his honesty, and his authenticity,” Leavitt said.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton echoed her sentiments later Wednesday night on CNN, repeatedly ignoring host Kaitlan Collins’ questions about Trump’s comments in favor of his own talking points about Kamala Harris’ lack of media interviews and her status as a “San Francisco Liberal,” a phrase he returned to many times.
“Trump loves African-Americans. He loves Indian-Americans. He loves all Americans,” Cotton said. “The point is that we don’t know where she stands politically because she spent her entire life as a dangerous San Francisco liberal, and now in the last 10 days she’s trying to flip-flop on every single position.”
In the 2020 presidential election, roughly 92% of Black voters cast ballots for Joe Biden. Early polling suggested that Biden may have lost some support from Black voters while he was still running for reelection. In polling data published by the Pew Research Center in May, about 77% of voters said they favored Biden compared to 18% who said they preferred Trump. Pew’s data also suggested a slightly higher number of Black voters under age 25 leaned Republican—17%, compared to only 8% of Black voters over age 50.
“The hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president,” Harris’ campaign said in a statement on Wednesday in response.
“Let me just say: The American people deserve better,” Harris said herself, who spoke at a Black sorority event in Houston the same day. “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts.”
Later, at his own rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump barely mentioned his appearance in Chicago. He did, however, call Harris’ campaign rollout “phony” and “fake.”
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