ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
One of former President Donald Trump's lines of attack against Vice President Kamala Harris' racial identity has been given a fresh lease on life by his GOP surrogate Hulk Hogan.
The WWE Hall of Famer was seen making a racist joke, commenting on Harris' Indian heritage, as well as asking if she was a "chameleon," during a promotional event for his new beer on Monday night.
He also offered to "body slam" Harris, to chants of "yeah!" from the crowd.
The raucous scene, first unearthed by TMZ, was quickly picked up and shared by a pro-Harris account on X.
The incident came three weeks after Hogan appeared at the Republican National Convention in support of Trump, and as the first night of the Democratic National Convention was getting underway.
Hogan's remarks — which he quickly attributed to booze — look set to reheat tensions created by the widely condemned comments Trump made at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in July.
There, Trump falsely said that Harris "happened to turn Black" after having primarily presented herself as Indian-American.
He later doubled down on that, sharing a video on Truth Social of Harris discussing her Indian identity, and commenting: "Crazy Kamala is saying she's Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!"
In response, Harris said the comments were "the same old show" of "divisiveness" and "disrespect."
Excerpts from Hogan's Monday night appearance included:
"You wanna get crazy?" Hogan asked the crowd, evincing a cheer after each question.
"You want me to throw more beers out? You want me to body slam somebody? You want me to body slam Kamala Harris?
"I said — do you want me to body slam Kamala Harris? You want me to drop the leg on Kamala?" he continued, referring to one of his signature wrestling moves.
He then moved on to Harris' racial identity.
"Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian? OK, I like it," he said, before raising his hand in a gesture that is stereotypically understood as a Native American greeting. "How," he said, to laughter from the crowd.
Hogan appeared to immediately backtrack: "I'm gonna get heat for that one, brother. That was not me, that was the beers talking," he said.
WWE fighters regularly embody hyper-violent and often unsavory caricatures both inside and outside the ring.
When contacted by Business Insider, Hogan's talent agency doubled down on the Trump-style attack.
"When Kamala was prosecutor, she presented herself as the first Indian prosecutor," Linda Bose, an Empire Agency employee, said, sharing a headline from the Times of India that highlighted her Indian heritage.
"Now she is running for president, to get the votes of the Black Americans, she and the media are putting her second identity in focus — now she is the first Black presidential candidate."
Bose added that Richard Paraiso, the Empire Agency's cofounder, is Black and didn't consider the remarks racist.
Kamala Harris is, of course, neither the first Black presidential candidate nor the US's first Indian prosecutor. But should she win the election, she would notch several firsts, including becoming the first female president in the country's history.
Harris, whose mother was Indian and whose father is Jamaican, was the first Indian-American US senator.
She attended a historically Black university and has discussed various aspects of her biracial identity throughout her career.
The Hogan episode will do little to assuage the fears of those in the Republican Party who are concerned that Trump's campaign is honing in on racial and gender attacks at the expense of the party's policy platform.
In July — after several Republican jibes calling Harris a "DEI hire" — House Speaker Mike Johnson warned the party off attacking Harris on the basis of her ethnicity or gender.
Multiple Republicans, including Kellyanne Conway, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Maryland's former governor Larry Hogan, have also urged Trump and his party to rein in the personal attacks.
But that seemingly hasn't dissuaded Trump and some of his surrogates from fixating on her identity.
