Trump digs in on attacking Kamala Harris’s biracial identity

Former President Donald Trump has continued to attack Vice President Kamala Harris‘s biracial identity despite GOP consternation that it could turn off critical swing voters.

“Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago!” Trump sarcastically wrote Thursday morning on Truth Social, sharing a photo of Harris embracing her Indian heritage with family members as he casts doubt on her identity as a black woman. “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.”

Just one day earlier, Trump participated in a panel with three black female reporters in Chicago, during which he falsely accused Harris of only embracing her black identity later in her career.

“So I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly, very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said, prompting audience members to gasp. “I didn’t know she was black, until a number of years ago when she ran [as] black, and now she wants to be known as black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?

“I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and … she became a black person,” Trump said.

Harris’s father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. The vice president has previously expressed that she was raised to embrace both identities. She also attended Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., where she joined the black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. When Harris was the junior senator from California, she was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The blowback from Democrats swiftly poured in after Trump’s comments spread, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre calling them “repulsive” during Wednesday’s press briefing.

Harris communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement that “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 as he seeks to regain power and inflict his harmful Project 2025 agenda on the American people.”

Democrats have used the comments — Trump also posted about her race on Wednesday evening — to suggest he is becoming “unhinged” as Harris narrows or erases his lead in swing states. He risks harming his standing with centrist and suburban voters who will decide the election, but his comments could also conflict with his open wooing of black male voters, some of whom had expressed dismay with President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the 2024 race.

The former president’s comments are notable given the children of his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), are also biracial. Vance’s wife, Usha, is of Indian descent.

Harris gave her first public remarks about Trump’s comments during a keynote speech Wednesday evening to black sorority members, calling them unbecoming of the office he wants to hold.

“This afternoon, Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, and it was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect, and let me just say: The American people deserve better,” Harris responded at Sigma Gamma Rho’s 60th International Biennial Boule in Houston.

Congressional Republicans took different approaches to addressing Trump’s comments. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican running for the state’s open Senate seat, publicly denounced the former president.

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

Other Republican lawmakers did not denounce Trump, but they also didn’t embrace his comments.

“I don’t think it was helpful,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said.

“It’s not a great idea for either of the parties to be playing racial identity politics, whether it’s ‘white dudes for Kamala’ or whatever this is,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Axios.

Vance defended Trump’s comments in a conversation with reporters as he traveled to a campaign rally Wednesday evening in Arizona.

“I frankly just think it’s hysterical how much the media is overreacting to it,” Vance said.

“I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” he said. “And you guys saw yesterday, she was in Georgia, and she put on a southern accent for a Georgia audience. She grew up in Vancouver. What the hell is going on here? She is not who she pretends to be.”

In one notable instance, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) declined to directly address the former president’s comments.

“I don’t get into all that stuff,” Tuberville 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.”

Even before Trump’s latest comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had warned his conference to refrain from attacking Harris over her race and focus instead on attacking her liberal voting record while in office. Some GOP senators echoed Johnson’s comments when reflecting on Trump’s NABJ appearance to the Washington Examiner.

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

David Sivak contributed to this report.