Former President Donald Trump once again falsely questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial and ethnic identity during an interview with the “PBD Podcast” that aired on Thursday.
Trump — who spoke with the podcast’s host, Patrick Bet-David, on Wednesday — said that a lot of people were not aware that Harris is Black.
“They have a woman who is Black, although you would say she’s Indian, but she is Black, but she really — a lot of people didn’t know, which is true,” Trump said.
Bet-David responded that he wasn’t aware until recently that Harris was Black.
“I learned about it only a couple of months ago,” Bet-David said.
Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump looks on as he participates in a town hall presented by Spanish-language network Univision, in Doral, Fla., Oct. 16, 2024.
Marco Bello/Reuters, FILE
Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother.
Both Trump and Bet-David continued to joke about Harris’ racial and ethnic identity, comparing her to baseball player Sammy Sosa, whose complexion had allegedly gotten lighter after he said he applied bleaching cream every night to soften his skin.
“You sometimes have to respect people, right? So I thought maybe she was doing a Sammy Sosa the other way,” Bet-David said, to which Trump agreed, saying, “Yeah Sammy’s changed. And people change.”
Trump’s comments come at a time that his campaign is working to appeal to voters of color including Black voters — a voting bloc where Harris leads, according to recent polling. Harris is polling ahead of Trump with Black voters who are registered to vote, 82-13%, according to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll.
This isn’t the first time Trump has discussed Harris’ racial identity — making false claims in the process.
Former President Donald Trump answers a question while participating in a Q&A with Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, during the National Association of Black Journalists Annual Convention and Career Fair at Hilton Chicago, July 31, 2024, in Chicago.
Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images
Trump falsely claimed that Harris has not identified as both Black and Indian during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in July.
“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 during the NABJ interview.
He went on to wrongly say that “she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn, and she went — she became a Black person.”
Trump doubled down on the false claims during ABC’s presidential debate in September.
Asked by moderators about his previous comments on Harris’ race, the former president said he “couldn’t care less” about her racial identity.
“I don’t care what she is. I don’t care,” Trump said Tuesday. “Whatever she wants to be is OK with me.”
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park with supportive Republicans in Washington Crossing, Pa., Oct. 16, 2024.
Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images
Harris responded, saying Trump has made comments about race to divide the country.
“Honestly, I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people,” Harris said during the debate. “I think the American people want better than that, want better than this.”
ABC News reached out to the Harris campaign for a comment on Trump’s mention of her race in the podcast, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Trump’s campaign responded to his remarks on the podcast, with its Black Media Director Janiyah Thomas telling ABC News in a statement that “at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to President Trump how Kamala Harris chooses to identify herself today, yesterday, or tomorrow.”
“What does matter to President Trump is the fact that she is making this country less safe and less affordable,” Thomas added.