White House communications director Ben LaBolt went after comments by former President Trump on Vice President Harris’s race and heritage Wednesday.
“Full circle,” LaBolt said Tuesday in a post on the social platform X. “He started his national political career by saying Barack Obama wasn’t American.”
In an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention Wednesday, Trump said the vice president “was always of Indian heritage.”
“And she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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 continued.
Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, is of both Indian and Jamaican descent and would be the first woman, first person of South Asian descent and first Black woman to hold the office of presidency if she wins in November.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also responded to Trump’s comments on Harris’s ethnicity at a press briefing Wednesday after a reporter told her about them.
“As a person of color, as a Black woman … what he just said, what you just read out to me, is repulsive, it’s insulting and no one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify,” said Jean-Pierre, the first Black person to hold her role.
Harris has also faced attacks linking her to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the right.
“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 is insulting,” Jean-Pierre said. “She is the vice president of the United States … we have to put some respect on her name, period.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.