Charlamagne tha God said the media should not focus on former President Trump’s comments racial attacks on Vice President Harris, calling them a distraction from more pressing conversations about important issues.
“I don't give a damn about any of this, and neither should you. Like, nobody in the media should care,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “Donald Trump doesn't have any new tricks. He focuses on identity. He focuses on race. He focuses on gender. He makes white America think that the changing demographics of this country are affecting their livelihood.”
Charlamagne, who has said he would endorse Harris as the Democratic nominee, added that Trump deserves “no credit” for appearing in front of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) for the interview, as Trump and his supporters have suggested.
Trump faced heavy criticism this week for a live interview at the NABJ on Wednesday, where he falsely implied that Harris had only chosen to identify as Black in recent years, once she was running for office.
“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. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris is the first female vice president as well as the first Black and first Indian American vice president. She attended Howard University, which is a historically Black university, and has consistently talked about her Black and Indian heritage.
Trump has doubled down on his comments in recent days, posting videos from 2020 of Harris cooking Indian food with Mindy Kaling and photos of Harris wearing a sari.
However, Charlamagne does not believe that the media should focus on the attacks.
“The media should focus on whatever candidate is talking about the issues,” he said. “Anything else is not worth the air time. How many times is Donald Trump gonna run the same trick over and over and over, and we continue to fall for it and be distracted.”
“We all know Kamala Harris is Black and we all know she's Indian, and we also know Donald Trump is a bigot and we know he's divisive,” Charlamagne added. "I don't need the media running Donald Trump's greatest hits over and over for the next 95 days.”
He added that Harris needs to “stay on message” and not “get distracted” by conversations about “who’s Black.” Instead, he said she should focus on explaining how she is going to “put money back in people’s pockets” and keep them safe.
Burnett also asked him about a Black man who called into his show to talk about Harris not claiming her Black identity. Charlamagne said he would tell the caller that “he's bugging.”
