Former U.S. president and 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump answers questions as moderator and journalist Rachel Scott looks on during the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
CHICAGO — Donald Trump challenged Vice President Kamala Harris’ identity politics on race during an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago that quickly turned combative Wednesday.
The Republican former president said Harris, the first Black and Asian American woman to serve as vice president, had in the past only promoted her 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?” Trump said while addressing the group’s annual convention.
Harris responded Wednesday, saying “the American people deserve better.” Speaking at the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s 60th International Biennial Boule in Houston, Harris drew knowing chuckles from the audience as she mentioned Trump’s comments earlier in the day. “It was the same old show,” she said.
“The divisiveness and the disrespect.” Later on Wednesday, Trump returned to Pennsylvania for the first time since his attempted assassination July 13. The former president hailed the spectator who was killed and the two others seriously wounded by the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Before holding a brief moment of silence at the rally in Harrisburg, Pa., for Corey Comperatore, 50, a former fire chief shot dead at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., Trump recalled Comperatore’s last act, which was to throw himself over his wife and daughters to shield them from the shots fired by Crooks. “Corey is a hero to all of us,” Trump said.
Trump also said “challenge accepted” in response to Harris’ invitation to compare records. “Well, Kamala, let’s go. Challenge accepted.
Are you ready? Let’s compare our records, point by point,” he told the packed New Holland arena. Earlier, in Chicago, Trump doubled down on his claim that undocumented immigrants are taking “Black jobs.” Asked what he means by that term, Trump said: “It’s any job.”
“These people are coming into our country and their taking Black jobs and Hispanic jobs and quite frankly union jobs,” he said.
“They’re taking your jobs.” Trump took a combative stance from the opening seconds of the forum with a panel of Black journalists, including Harris Faulkner of Fox News, ABC’s Rachel Scott and Semafor’s Kadia Goba. “I love the Black population,” Trump said.
“I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.” Trump also defended his fitness to serve even though he would be older than President Joe Biden by the end of a four-year term. “I know many people in their 80s and 90s who are in great shape,” Trump said. He said he would be willing to take a cognitive test and suggested Harris might fail such a test.
Speaking at a fundraiser in Houston later Wednesday, Harris warned that after the Supreme Court found that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution, Trump will be emboldened like never before if he wins the White House again. Harris raised $2.5 million at the fundraiser, her campaign said.