'Divisiveness and disrespect': Kamala Harris responds to Trump's attacks about her racial identity

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said "the American people deserve better" as she responded to former President Donald Trump's combative interview with the National Association of Black Journalists Annual Convention that included false claims about her racial identity.

"It was the same old show − the divisiveness and the disrespect," Harris said Wednesday night in Houston, while addressing members of a historically Black sorority, Sigma Gamma Sorority, during its 60th Biennial Boule.

"The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength," Harris said.

More: Trump questions Kamala Harris' racial identity at NABJ, says she 'happened to turn Black'

In his interview earlier Wednesday with the NABJ in Chicago, Trump questioned the Black racial identify of Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who is half Black and half Indian-American.

"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. “Is she Indian or is she Black? 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.”

Harris, whose father is Jamaican and mother Indian, attended Howard University, a historically Black college. She is the first female vice president in U.S. history and also the first Black woman to hold the office.

Trump's remarks came as Harris is enjoying polling momentum in her still-young campaign for president after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race July 21. The Trump campaign has set out aggressively to define Harris − and calling into question her racial identity appears to be part of that strategy.

"Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!" Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social , doubling down on his false claims from his interview.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pa. later Wednesday night, Trump accused Harris of adopting a "new southern accent" when she spoke the previous night at a campaign event in Atlanta.

A big screen above Trump's stage prior to his remarks at the rally featured a photo of a smiling Harris and a 2016 Associated Press headline that read, "California's Kamala Harris becomes first Indian-American US Senator."

Warming up for Trump at the rally, his attorney Alina Hubba told the crowd up Trump supporters, "Unlike you, Kamala, I know who my roots are. I know where I come from."

Trump’s vice presidential running-mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, in a speech Wednesday in Arizona said, “Kamala Harris is a phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”

It isn't the first time Trump allies have attacked Harris' racial identity. Similar suggestions were made in 2019 about Harris when she was a presidential candidate in the Democratic primary. The Harris campaign back then compared the assertions to Trump's birther claims against President Barack Obama in which Trump falsely suggested Obama was born in Kenya.

"The hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president," Michael Tyler, the Harris campaign communications director, said in a statement Wednesday following Trump's NABJ interview.

"Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us," Tyler said.

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Divisiveness and disrespect': Kamala Harris responds to Trump's attacks about her racial identity