This week, Vice President Kamala Harris herself responded to widely criticized comments from former President Donald Trump — now the Republican presidential nominee for the year — at a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Getting perhaps the most attention out of anything he said in the onstage interview, Trump suggested that Harris was being deceptive and/or manipulative in identifying as Black, although her father is from Jamaica. Her mother was from India. Essentially, Trump’s comments seemed to steamroll over the existence of biracial people.
“It was the same old show,” Harris said of Trump’s time at the convention. “The divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say: The American people deserve better. The American people deserve better. 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. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”
Trump’s comments even spurred questions at that day’s White House press conference, though Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was careful to not respond in a campaign capacity considering she was appearing before journalists in her U.S. government role. But she flatly condemned the ex-president.
“Only she can speak to her experience. Only she can speak to what it’s like. She’s the only person that can do that. And I think it’s insulting for anybody — it doesn’t matter if it’s a former leader, a former president — it is insulting,” said Jean-Pierre. “And we have to put — she is the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. We have to put some respect on her name, period.”
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg — who is considered a possibility for Harris’ running mate — and Harris’ husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, both characterized what Trump’s been doing as at least an attempted distraction.
