Veteran GOP political pundit Scott Jennings said former President Trump made a big mistake with his remarks about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s race during a gathering of Black journalists in Chicago on Wednesday.
“He did crap the bed. … The only question is whether he’s going to roll around in it or get up and change the sheets,” Jennings, a CNN contributor, said after Trump fielded questions at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention Wednesday.
Trump has faced intense backlash after he took aim at his Democratic rival, the first female vice president and the first vice president of color, by questioning her race and falsely claiming Harris only promoted her Indian heritage in the past.
“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,” Trump told the NABJ crowd during a live interview. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris, whose father is Jamaican and mother is Indian, has consistently identified as Black and South Asian throughout her career.
She is an alumnus of Howard University and prominent member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority founded on the historically Black university’s campus to empower Black women. She was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus while representing California in the Senate, and she has been recognized prominently as the country’s first Black vice president.
Though Jennings and some other Republicans have suggested Trump would be best to move on from the issue, the 45th president and some of his allies appear to be doubling down.
Hours after the NABJ event, Trump posted a 2019 video on Truth Social of Harris cooking with Indian American comedian Mindy Kaling.
“Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” he wrote in the caption.
Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance (R), whose wife is Indian American, called Trump’s remarks and the reaction to them “hysterical.”
“I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance told reporters on his campaign plane Wednesday night. “She’s flip-flopped on every issue. She’s fake. She’s phony. And I think our whole campaign is going to have a very fun time pointing that out. And it sounds like the president kicked us off in stride.”
Harris, who was in Houston on Wednesday, fired back at Trump’s attacks after the NABJ event.
“It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect,” she said. “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us; they are an essential source of our strength.”
Jennings, who was an aide to former President George W. Bush and worked on his campaigns, said he thinks Trump “deserves some points for showing up at this thing and giving it a go,” referring to the NABJ forum where he fielded unscripted and difficult questions for about half an hour.
Harris’s team said a scheduling conflict prevented her from attending the NABJ event because of her rapid pivot to the top of the November ticket, after President Biden ended his reelection campaign last month.