The former president falsely accused Vice President Kamala Harris of “only promoting” her Indian heritage, among other inaccurate claims. Here’s a fact check.
- Share full article
Former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday during his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Chicago.
Former President Donald J. Trump, in a combative appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, repeatedly disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris and the Black women interviewing him as he made the case on Wednesday that Black voters should vote for him in November.
In a 30-minute appearance, Mr. Trump made false and exaggerated claims about Ms. Harris, overstated his role in securing funding for historically Black colleges and universities and repeated his false assertion that he did more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln. He also rehashed several other inaccurate claims about inflation, immigration and other topics that have become staples of his public appearances.
Here’s a fact check.
What Was Said
“I’ve known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much. 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.”
False. Ms. Harris, the daughter of an Indian American mother and Jamaican father, has consistently identified as Black in public life and long before she entered the national stage.
Ms. Harris told The Washington Post in 2019 that she had long been comfortable with her racial identity. The Post reported that during her 2010 race for attorney general of California, some members of the Indian American community in San Francisco had not known about Ms. Harris’s Indian heritage, and that in public office, Ms. Harris had “tended to stress issues over her personal biography.”
But Ms. Harris never hid her biracial background during various campaigns. In her 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold,” Ms. Harris wrote that her family instilled “pride in our South Asian roots” in her and her sister, Maya, but that “my mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters.”
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Source: nytimes.com
