Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said former President Trump's attack on Vice President Harris's heritage at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention on Wednesday revealed Trump to be a "desperate, scared old man."
“I think those are the comments of a desperate, scared old man, who, over the last week especially, has been having his butt kicked by an experienced prosecutor, and I think he's worried,” Kelly told reporters outside the Capitol on Wednesday.
“And she's going to continue to do this, and she's going to win the election in November, and she’s going to be our next president,” added Kelly, considered a top contender to be Harris’s running mate.
Trump gave a contentious interview on Wednesday at the NABJ annual convention in Chicago. At one point, Trump questioned Harris's heritage, which is both Indian American and African American.
“She 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 said of Harris. “So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?”
“But you know what, I respect either one,” Trump added. “But she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way then, all of a sudden, she made a turn. And she became a Black person. And I think somebody should look into that.”
Kelly said these comments from Trump “are not unexpected from him,” adding, “We've seen this over, you know, since when? 2015 or so. So he's done this before. He's not going to change. Pretty obvious to me, why, why he's doing this.”
On whether he thinks Trump's comments were rooted in racism, Kelly said, "Yeah, sure," but stressed, "It's who the guy is, and he's always been like this."
“I grew up in New Jersey originally. When I was in high school, he was a New Yorker business guy. Now he's a New Yorker old business guy, and he was like this when I used to see him in the news in the 1980s and he’s still the same today, He’s not going to change,” Kelly added, again knocking Trump for his age.
Harris has secured enough delegate votes to clinch the Democratic nomination, and she faces no real challenger. She is expected to announce a running mate by Aug. 7.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.
