Senate Republicans urge Trump to stay away from Harris DEI controversy

Senate Republicans pleaded with former President Donald Trump to focus on policy Wednesday after he accused Vice President Kamala Harris of “turning black” to benefit herself politically.

Speaking to black journalists in Chicago, Trump was asked about recent comments by a number of congressional Republicans arguing she was a “DEI hire” because President Joe Biden promised to select a woman as his vice president.

The insinuation that Harris was not qualified for the job received reprimands from GOP leaders including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who reportedly urged his conference to focus instead on Harris’s liberal voting record as she vies to replace Biden in the White House.

But Trump declined to do the same in his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists. Asked if he found the DEI comments “acceptable,” Trump proceeded to claim falsely that Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage, did not present as black later in her career.

“You know what, I respect either one. But she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way, then all of a sudden, she made a turn. And she became a black person. And I think somebody should look into that,” Trump said.

Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus during her time in the Senate and years before that a member of a black sorority at a historically black college.

The remark received a reprimand from some corners of the GOP, most prominently former Gov. Larry Hogan, who is running for Senate in deep-blue Maryland.

“It’s unacceptable and abhorrent to attack Vice President Harris or anyone’s racial identity,” he posted on X. “The American people deserve better.”

But Senate Republicans, who are in Washington, D.C., until Thursday before a monthlong summer recess, either sidestepped the comments or stated that Republicans will lose the election if their focus is anywhere except policy.

“I think the most important thing we can talk about is the policies and statements she’s made,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said of Harris. “They’re just very radical.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, a centrist Republican from North Carolina, rattled off the border, national security, and the economy as the three issues that will send Republicans to Washington in November.

“We focus on that, we win,” he said. “We shift focus away from it, we start losing.”

The statements were directed at Republicans writ large, but the plea to Trump was unmistakable and in some cases explicit.

“That’s advice to all my colleagues in North Carolina who are running for reelection and anybody else who wants to sweep this town,” Tillis said when asked if his comments were directed at Trump. “And we need to sweep this town.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) defended Trump, denying he was questioning Harris’s black heritage but rather “making fun of the fact that she chooses it when it’s convenient.”

But he, too, said the remarks were not helpful. “It just opens him up for this kind of questioning, even though I think, as I’ve always said, we should take him seriously, not literally.”

Even close Trump allies steered clear of the racially tinged comments.

“I don’t get into all that stuff,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said. “Let him talk about what he wants to talk about. I’m talking about the bad shape our country is [in] right now because of her.”

GOP lawmakers grew accustomed to fielding the periodic controversies that marked Trump’s first presidential campaign and eventually his four years in the White House. But the political fallout from Wednesday’s comments has taken on added significance as Republicans try to find their footing after Democrats swapped out Biden at the top of the ticket.

Trump has begun to home in on Harris’s record, in particular her role as Biden’s so-called border czar. But his campaign has also been criticized for a lack of message discipline. Trump doubled down on the racial attacks, calling Harris a “stone cold phony” in a Wednesday post on Truth Social.

“She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” he said.

Senate Democrats quickly fundraised off the Trump interview, highlighting his comment that Harris “could be” a diversity hire. In an email, the Senate Majority PAC invoked Trump’s past “racist attacks,” including the times he doubted the authenticity of former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Harris’s campaign denounced Trump’s remarks at the NABJ conference as an “absolute disaster.”

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign accused the media of engaging in “unhinged and unprofessional commentary,” including the insinuation that the interview was cut short because it was a “train wreck.”