A group of Black male voters in Pennsylvania told a local reporter that they didn’t consider Vice President Kamala Harris to be Black prior to former President Trump's comments on her race.
On Saturday, CNN host Michael Smerconish showed a clip of local CBS news affiliate reporter Joel D. Smith speaking with a group of potential Black voters at a barbershop last week regarding their opinion on Harris.
"Is Kamala gonna make you a little more likely or less likely to vote Democrat?" Smith asked the men.
Before answering the question, one of the men addressed the barber, saying, "Greg, hold on Greg. Is Kamala Black, yes or no?"
"I’m gonna let her speak on that, but to me, no," he responded.
The man then turned to the others sitting next to him and asked the same question.
"I share that same view," one responded.
"I heard she wasn’t," another said. "I heard she’s half Black and half Asian."
During his show, Smerconish mentioned he had played an audio version of the clip on his radio show Thursday and noted he had since received feedback emphasizing those men did not represent the Black community overall.
"When I played that audio on my Sirius XM radio program on Thursday, many callers who self-identified as African-American were quick to tell me that those men were the exception, not the rule. Some described them as low-information voters, no different than you'd find among Whites," Smerconish reported.
He also noted the clip was recorded prior to Trump’s contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday. During a Q&A event, Trump said Harris changed her racial background.
"She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage," Trump said. "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. So, I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?"
Trump’s comments received swift pushback for attacking Harris’ "Blackness."
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"To walk into a room full of Black journalists and attack someone’s ‘Blackness’ is another level of disrespect. To anyone who needs a reminder: we can’t change the color of our skin, and we don’t want to." NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote.
"I understand he is a candidate for president, but Republicans have generally refused to attend our conventions or speak at them. And he has done that so, why now? Because he is trying to discredit Vice President Kamala Harris? And I don’t think that is fair to our membership," longtime NABJ member Justice B. Hill said.
