Former president Donald Trump made bigoted comments about Vice President Kamala Harris’s ethnicity and insulted the moderator at a campaign event in Chicago, once again revealing his lack of basic humanity and disrespect for Americans.
Claiming that he had been aware of the Vice President’s Indian heritage, the neofascist Repblican said that he 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,” Trump said during a combative question-and-answer session at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.
The moderator, Rachel Scott of ABC News, was met with insults almost from the outset.
Scott’s first question was prefaced with a recitation of Trump’s past statements, including his racially charged claim that former President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, and examples of the Republican’s past treatment of Black journalists.
“Why should Black voters trust you, after you have used language like that?” Scott asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” the GOP presidential nominee replied.
“You don’t even say ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network,” Trump said, as some in the audience at the Hilton Chicago jeered.
“I love the Black population of this country,” Trump said, continuing to interrupt Scott as she tried to press for an answer. “I think it’s a very nasty question. … I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”
Trump also argued over a question about Republicans who referred to the Vice President as “a DEI candidate,”after asking for a definition of the acronym that stands for “diversity, equity, inclusion.”
Harris was part of a historically Black sorority and has embraced her Black identity in many ways.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Trump’s comments “repulsive” and “insulting.”
Trump touched on a range of topics after his combative beginning, discussing jobs, inflation and border security — though in nearly each case, he repeated lies that have been previously exposed as such, including his false claim that inflation is at its highest point in a century.
Also on the panel were Harris Faulkner of Fox News, who sat down with Trump this month, and Kadia Goba, a reporter at Semafor who interviewed Trump this year
Goba remarked that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has a lot of opinions, “about childless women like myself and,” pointing to Trump, “divorced people like you.”
That drew laughs from the audience and a smile from Trump, who noted the question had been asked in a friendly manner.
Scheduled for an hour, Trump cut things short at about 37 minutes, just before one of the panel started to ask about Project 2025, a policy agenda developed at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, by several former Trump administration officials.
While Trump is trying to hide his intentions from the American voters, the policy plan is explicit about ways to outlaw abortion, shift wealth from workers to the rich, and unleash deadly pollution on the country.
The first Black and Asian woman to be a major-party presidential nominee, Harris confronted her opponent’s outlandish assertion that she leaned into being Black for political expediency.
Harris addressed Trump’s statements during remarks at the annual gathering of the historically Black Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, calling Trump’s words “the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect.”
“The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth,” Harris said. “A leader who doesn’t respond with hostility and anger when presented with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”
Harris’s mother is from India, and her father was born in Jamaica. Harris has embraced both identities for decades.
She attended historically Black Howard University and has been a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha since the mid-1980s. She has routinely talked about being a barrier-breaking first in many of the jobs she has held.
Harris became the Democrats’ likely nominee after President Biden on July 21 bowed to pressure to step aside following a rocky performance in a presidential debate against Trump.
Biden is 81 years old, and Harris is 59. Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in U.S. history at 78 and would be the oldest president elected if he were to win a second term.
Democrats hope Harris’s entry into the race will galvanize minority and younger voters.
Trump’s attack against Harris showcased “the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president,” according to Harris campaign spokesman Michael Tyler.
“Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency — while he failed Black families and left the entire country digging out of the ditch he left us in,” Tyler said. “Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us.”
The campaign also said Trump’s comments were “a taste of the chaos and division” that would mark a second Trump term.
.
Discover more from NJTODAY.NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.