Trump Risks Alienating Large Swaths of America With Harris Racial Attack

Former President Donald Trump has once again elicited a news cycle of controversy, sighs and outrage — including from some Republicans — over comments he made questioning Vice President Kamala Harris's racial identity during an interview with a group of Black journalists this week.

In an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists on Wednesday, Trump said of Harris: "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."

The interview, a source of controversy even before it even took place, quickly devolved from there into a contentious back-and-forth before ending abruptly. His comments about Harris were met with jeers and audible gasps from the audience of about 1,000 journalists.

Trump then doubled down on those off-the-cuff remarks, posting on his social network an old photograph of Harris wearing a traditional Indian saree and mocking her "Indian Heritage."

A "vintage Trump meltdown," as The Bulwark newsletter put it Thursday morning. After weeks of running a remarkably disciplined campaign, here was the same old Trump — on his heels after the head-spinning swap out of his main opponent — reverting to a provocative if somewhat open-to-interpretation line of attack destined to drown out the issues his own campaign want to highlight.

The former president's reversion to identity-based attacks on Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian heritage and went to a historically black university, also threatens to alienate key voter demographics as the election approaches, according to academics and strategists who spoke to Newsweek. The same demographics — like young people and minority voters – that he needs to make inroads with in order to win.

For some, the remarks show that Trump still seems to be searching for an effective way to attack Harris nearly two weeks since President Biden dropped out of the race.

"Despite Kamala Harris being in the public eye for years and serving as vice president, it's clear Trump hasn't done his homework on her," said Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University who specializes in Black politics.

"In the last week, Trump, JD Vance, and their surrogates have tried all kinds of racial attacks, just throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks."

Trump's comments Wednesday on Harris's racial background drew some of the biggest gasps from the audience and provided Democrats with a new source of material to run against the man they say wants to "take America backward."

For her part, Harris said in response that the racial comments were "the same old show."

The White House immediately seized on the remarks, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre calling them "repulsive" and "insulting."

At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania several hours after the NABJ interview, Trump did not repeat his criticism of Harris's racial identity but continued to attack her credentials and mispronounced her name several times. He also showed old news articles highlighting her Indian-American background, in an apparent attempt to suggest she was changing her identity.

Online, a number of Trump supporters doubled down on the attack line, sharing videos and images of the vice president embracing her mother's Indian heritage.

Among those dispatched to television to defend it all was Vivek Ramaswamy, the one-time Republican presidential candidate turned fierce Trump supporter and media surrogate, who is also of Indian descent.

"This rhetoric is aimed at energizing his base but does not appear to alienate his core supporters, who remain loyal regardless of his actions or statements," said Dr. Imani M. Cheers of George Washington University's school of media and public affairs.

Unlike his well-worn strategy of relentlessly hitting President Biden's age and mental acuity, the Trump campaign is yet to find its footing on a sharp attack line against Harris. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, suggested that Trump was simply pointing out the "fundamental chameleon-like nature" of Harris.

But to many veteran political analysts, that strategy comes with risk. According to the last U.S. Census, some 10% of the American population — more than 33 million people — identify as biracial. That number was up 276% from the 2010 Census.

"Trump doesn't have the same points to attack Harris as he did with Biden, so he will likely use race and ethnicity. We're going to see him try to undermine her identity and affiliations, but I think this will only further isolate him and his base," Dr. Cheers told Newsweek.

Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist, said that Trump needs to be working to expand his voting base rather than rile up his most ardent supporters.

"That negative rhetoric is designed to suppress voter enthusiasm, but in the context he delivered it, it has the opposite effect of heightening concerns among minority groups that he doesn't understand them," he told Newsweek.

Some in the GOP appear to understand the risks involved with focusing on Harris' biracial background as a line of attack.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has cautioned his caucus against leveling such criticisms on Harris, suggesting they focus on her policy record and time in the Biden administration.

Scott Jennings, a conservative pundit on CNN, put it more bluntly: "[Trump] did crap the bed. ... The only question is whether he's going to roll around in it or get up and change the sheets."

Meanwhile, the inroads that Trump has made among Black voters between now and 2020 appeared to be eroding even before the NABJ interview.

Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University, said the attacks on Harris' identity are only "likely to accelerate the downward spiral" in support among that very demographic.

"They remind voters of the contentiousness that characterized his presidency, which many voters rejected and do not recall nostalgically," Panagopoulos said.

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