White House communications director Ben LaBolt on Wednesday criticized former President Trump’s comments about Vice President Harris’ race and origins.
“We’ve come full circle,” LaBolt said in a post Tuesday. Social Platform X“He launched his national political career by saying Barack Obama was un-American.”
In an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference on Wednesday, Trump said the vice president “has always been of Indian descent.”
“She was just touting her Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago, when she became black. And now she wants to be known as black,” Trump continued.
Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, is of Indian and Jamaican descent and if she wins in November’s election she would become the first woman, the first South Asian person to serve as president and the first black woman to do so.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also responded during a press conference on Wednesday after being informed by a reporter about Trump’s comments about Harris’ ethnicity.
“As a person of color, as a Black woman … what he just said, what you just read to me, is offensive and demeaning, and no one has the right to dictate to another person who they are or how they identify,” said Jean-Pierre, the first Black person to hold the position.
Harris has also faced attacks from the right for tying her to efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Only she can talk about her experience, only she can talk about what it’s like. Only she can do that. I think it’s insulting to everybody… It’s insulting,” Jean-Pierre said. “She’s the vice president of the United States… We should respect her name, period.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
