10 months ago
31
(NewsNation) — Republican vice statesmanlike nominee Sen. JD Vance defended erstwhile President Donald Trump's wide criticized comments astir Vice President Kamala Harris' contention during an lawsuit Wednesday successful Michigan.
Vance is speaking astatine different halt successful Eau Claire, Wisconsin successful the afternoon.
Trump, during a Q&A league astatine National Association of Black Journalists normal past week, wrongly said Harris has lone promoted her Indian heritage.
“I didn’t cognize she was Black until a fig of years agone erstwhile she happened to crook Black, and present she wants to beryllium known arsenic Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian oregon is she Black?” Trump said.
Vance, whose wife, Usha, is Indian, making his kids biracial, said helium didn't presumption Trump's comments arsenic an "attack" connected Harris' background.
"What I took it arsenic was an onslaught connected Kamala Harris being a chameleon," Vance said, reiterating Trump's mendacious claims that the vice president "pretends to beryllium 1 happening erstwhile she's successful beforehand of 1 audience," but "pretends to beryllium thing else" erstwhile speaking to others.
In reality, Harris, the girl of a Jamaican begetter and an Indian mother, has often talked astir some parts of her heritage. She touched connected increasing up successful a multicultural location successful her 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey."
FactCheck.org writes determination is "ample evidence" that Harris has identified arsenic some Indian American and Black for decades.
“My Indian practice is conscionable arsenic beardown arsenic my African American heritage. One does not exclude the other,” Harris told a section paper concatenation successful 2003, the twelvemonth she was elected San Francisco territory attorney.
However, Vance inactive utilized Trump's notation of Harris' practice to impeach her of being "fake."
"Donald Trump said thing precise simple, wholly inoffensive, but frankly, evidently existent to me," Vance said.
Michael Tyler, communications manager for Harris' campaign, fired backmost astatine Trump aft helium spoke astatine the NABJ convention, saying his “tirade is simply a sensation of the chaos and part that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies."
White House property caput Karine Jean-Pierre besides weighed in.
“It’s insulting, and nary 1 has immoderate close to archer idiosyncratic who they are, however they identify," Jean-Pierre said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
