NEW YORK — Donald Trump has found tremendous success from the very first moment he stepped onto the presidential stage by stoking racial animus.
Democrats expressed new outrage this week at the former president’s derisive and false charge that Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian heritage, only recently “turned Black” for political gain. Some Republicans — even from within Trump’s own campaign — seemed to distance themselves from the comment.
But Trump’s rhetoric this week, and his record on race since he entered politics nearly a decade ago, indicate that divisive attacks on race may emerge as a core GOP argument in the three-month sprint to Election Day — whether his allies want them to or not.
A Trump adviser, granted anonymity Thursday to discuss internal strategy, said the campaign doesn’t need to focus on “identity politics” because the case against Harris is that she is “so liberal it’s dangerous.” The adviser pointed to Harris’ record on the Southern border, crime, the economy and foreign policy.
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In a sign that Trump may not be coordinating his message with his own team, the Republican presidential nominee doubled down on the same day with a new attack on Harris’ racial identity. He posted on his social media site a picture of Harris donning traditional Indian attire in a family photo.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who has endorsed Trump, was among a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill who said Thursday that the rhetoric around race and identity is not “helpful to anyone” this election cycle.
“People’s skin color doesn’t matter one iota,” Lummis said in an interview.
Trump turned to an old tactic against Harris
It’s been less than two weeks after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Harris. Trump has had to pivot from campaigning against an 81-year-old white man showing signs of decline to facing a 59-year-old Black woman who is drawing much larger crowds and new enthusiasm from Democratic donors.
Trump went to the National Association of Black Journalists convention on Wednesday. In an appearance carried live on cable news and shared widely online, he falsely suggested Harris misled voters about her race.
“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 said Wednesday.
At a Pennsylvania rally hours later, Trump’s team displayed years-old news headlines describing Harris as the “first Indian-American senator” on the big screen in the arena. And Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, told reporters traveling with him that Harris was a “chameleon” who changed her identity when convenient.
