“Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked, quickly adding, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person. I think somebody should look into that.”
It was a bizarre attack. Harris has always embraced her Blackness. She attended Howard University, a historically Black university.
Cornered by his naked bigotry, Trump shifted to naked pander. He said he loves “the Black population” of this country and declared himself the “best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln” — to which Rachel Scott of ABC News rightly replied, “Better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act?”
Trump has always found ways to attack his opponents — through ridicule, nastiness, and outright lies. But with Kamala Harris, everything he tries comes back at him, revealing him to be the bigot he has always been.
On Tuesday, Trump said Kamala Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people” and agreed with his right-wing radio host that her husband is a “crappy Jew.”
Trump then reiterated his criticism of Jewish voters who support Democrats, declaring that they “should have their head examined” and labeling them “fools” for their political choices.
We all know Trump is a racist, a misogynist, and an antisemite. But in past years he’s expressed such bigotry just enough to excite his base while covering himself with “I was just being sarcastic” or “It was taken out of context.” And the media allowed him to get away with it.
No longer. Now that he’s running for president against a Black woman, the media isn’t buying it. At this week's convention of Black journalists, ABC’s Scott led off the questions with this:
“A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States; that’s not true.
You have told four congresswomen of color who are American citizens to go back to where they came from.
You have used words like “animal” and “rabbit” to describe Black district attorneys.
You’ve attacked Black journalists, calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask are stupid and racist.
You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you: Why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?”
Instead of answering Scott’s question, Trump did what he always does when cornered — he attacked her, calling her “rude” for asking it. “First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he hissed. “The first question. You don’t even say hello, ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network.”
This week, during remarks at the annual gathering of the historically Black Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, Harris responded to Trump’s charges about her denying her Black identity. She characterized Trump’s claim as “the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect.” She continued:
“The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who doesn’t respond with hostility and anger when presented with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”
Exactly.
Trump is clearly rattled by the seeming audacity of Black people, of women, of Jews who don’t support him, of hard questions from the media — indeed, of anyone in America who finds him appalling, which is most of us.
Not knowing how to attack a Kamala Harris, Trump appears to be melting down.
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Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com
