Representative. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) faced intense interrogation on Sunday for refusing to convict the former president donald trumprepeated questions from the vice president Kamala Harris‘ racial identity, sometimes even echoing the Republican presidential candidate’s racist arguments about biracial pride presumptive Democratic candidate.
Trump has been apparently racist for decadesbut made headlines earlier this week after saying at an annual convention for black journalists what Harris “happened to turn black,” questioning how she could identify as Indian-American and black. Since then, the former president has doubled down on his comments, which have now been adopted by his running mateand the extreme rightwhile other Republicans think their candidate should focus less on Harris’ racial identity and more about his political positions.
Donalds, a Trump ally, has repeatedly tried to move past questions about the Republican nominee’s comments without calling them out. during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” But host George Stephanopoulos continued to press the congressman, who is black, about why he couldn’t just say that the former president’s questioning of Harris’ racial identity is wrong.
“This is really a fake controversy. I don’t really care, most people don’t,” Donalds said. “But if we want to be precise, when Kamala Harris entered the United States Senate, it was the AP that said she was the first Indian-American United States senator. In fact, this was discussed a lot when she entered the Senate.
“Now she’s running nationally. Obviously, the campaign has changed. They’re talking a lot more about their father’s heritage and his black identity,” he continued before trying to address what the Republican Party sees as the vice president’s policy failings.
The Associated Press reported at the time of Harris’ Senate victory that she was the first Indian-American to become a US Senator because it is correct, with this specific historical landmark tied to its Native American identity. The AP has never implied that Harris’s Indian-American identity negates her black identity, and the vice president has always identified as mixed race and a black woman.
In response to his response, Stephanopoulos reminded Donalds that he merely repeated Harris’ racist questioning, referring to it throughout the remainder of the interview as a “slur.”
“If it doesn’t matter, why do you keep questioning her identity?” the host asked. “She has always identified as a black woman. She is biracial. She has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is always identified as both. Why are you questioning this?
Donalds questioned his identity again and stated that there are a lot of social media users “trying to figure this out,” resulting in an argument between him and Stephanopoulos. Donalds then acknowledged Trump’s questioning of Harris’ identity during a rally in Atlanta on Saturday, trying to downplay the comments by claiming the Republican nominee only spoke about it for a few minutes.
“So questioning someone’s racial identity for a few minutes is okay?” asked Stephanopoulos, to which the congressman stated that none of Trump’s racism “matters to the American people.”
“I don’t understand why you and the president do this, but it’s clear you’re not going to say this is wrong,” Stephanopoulos said. “And now you’ve established that for our audience.”
During a “This Week” roundtable, ABC Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott who interviewed Trump when he made racist comments at the convention for black journalists, said it the former president “has leaned into territory that many Republicans expected him to categorically avoid, especially when it comes to questioning the racial identity, heritage — especially in the face of the National Association of Black Journalists — of Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Harris and her campaign have made a point of not making much of racist comments from Trump and his allies, calling it divisive and arguing that he’s focusing on her identity because he’s struggling to go after her based on real political issues.
“It was really remarkable for us as reporters to see the nuances of how she responded to some of these attacks by questioning her racial identity. She’s not going there, and the Democrats say, look, she knows who she is,” Scott said. “She identifies as a black and Asian woman. Why does she have to go there and respond like that?
“What she’s doing is putting the blame back on Donald Trump and the Republicans, saying they’re dividing and then going back to the issues,” Scott added.
