‘How Can You Fake Your Race?’ Reporter Presses Vance After He Defends Trump’s Attacks on Harris’ Race as ‘Obviously True’

Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) backed former President Donald Trump’s attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris’ race on Wednesday, telling a reporter he was “not bothered at all” by Trump’s controversial comments at a recent National Association of Black Journalists convention, which he described as “totally inoffensive” and “obviously true.”

At the NABJ event last month in Chicago, Trump was asked by ABC News reporter Rachel Scott about his attacks calling Harris a “DEI hire,” and he responded by accusing the vice president of “turn[ing] Black” recently:

And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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? 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, she went — she became Black. Somebody should look into that.

Harris’ father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India, making her biracial. She attended a historically Black university, Howard University, where she joined a Black Greek organization, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

In the aftermath of Trump’s comments, his supporters joined the attacks on Harris, taking headlines, articles, and videos out of context to claim she had hidden the Black half of her heritage. These attacks were inaccurate for multiple reasons; for example, a headline touting Harris as the “first Indian-American senator” from California didn’t mention her being Black because she wasn’t the first Black senator (and also was obviously not written by Harris). Another video clip of Harris talking to actress Mindy Kaling about their shared Indian heritage specifically features Harris saying Kaling looks “exactly” like “one half” of her family — clearly acknowledging the other half of her background. Trump himself shared that video with Kaling on Truth Social, accusing Harris of “saying she’s Indian, not Black” and calling her a “stone-cold phony.”

Vance strongly backed Trump’s comments when questioned by reporters during a campaign stop in Shelby Township, Michigan.

Will Jones , a reporter and anchor with WDIV in Detroit, said that he had been at the NABJ convention and asked Vance about what Trump had said about Harris’ “racial heritage.”

“You’re married to an Indian American woman, you have biracial children,” said Jones. “How do you explain his attacks and what is your reaction to his attacks as a father of biracial children?”

Vance replied that he was the father of biracial children, and they were back home with his aunt while his wife was traveling with him, and then addressed Trump’s comments:

Look, I was not bothered at all by what President Trump said. And I didn’t take it as an attack on Kamala Harris’ biracial background at all. What I took it as, was an attack on Kamala Harris being a chameleon. She pretends to be one thing when she’s in front of one audience, she pretends to be something else when she’s in front of another audience. And I think he was observing the basic foundational reality that Kamala Harris pretends to be something different depending on which audience she’s speaking to.

The senator added that Trump’s comments were “very simple, totally inoffensive” and “frankly, obviously true to me, which is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon. She’s a fake, and the American people have to look at her record, if we actually want to know how she stands on the issues, because her words simply can’t be trusted.”

“How can you fake your race?” another reporter called out.

“I’m sorry?” said Vance.

“If she’s both Indian and Black, how can she fake her race?” the reporter repeated.

“She fakes who she is depending on the audience she’s in front of,” Vance replied, “and that’s who she is, and that’s who she’s always been.”

Watch the clip above via CNN .