Yeah, Kamala Harris is a phony. The past few weeks have made it clear that she will change her positions on a whim if she thinks it will help her win a state. But, her phoniness is so much more than that. This week, Kamala's heritage has become a topic of conversation after Donald Trump highlighted the fact that she used to identify herself as Indian and only recently started leaning on her black heritage.
During a Q&A session with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) at their annual convention on Wednesday, ABC senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott took issue with the fact that many in the Republican Party have called Harris a DEI hire and put Trump on the spot to condemn the language.
"Well, I can say, maybe it's a little bit different," Trump replied. "I've known her for a long time indirectly, not directly so much. 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," and now she wants to be known as black. So, I don't know, is she Indian or is she black?"
"She's always identified as a black woman," Scott said.
This is patently false.
Before she embraced her black heritage publicly, Harris typically only highlighted her southern Indian roots and only that. Case in point: in 2016, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy left by the retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. The Associated Press described her as the "first Indian-American U.S. Senator."
The victory for 51-year-old Harris makes her the first Indian-American senator. Harris was backed by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other top Democrats.
Kamala also routinely identified herself as Indian American without making a point to explain that she was biracial.
What Donald Trump said is 100% true. Suddenly Kamala started identifying as black after always identifying as an Indian candidate. 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/KDfDEXVHrY
— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) July 31, 2024
Remember that time in 2019 when Kamala Harris did a cooking video with Mindy Kaling and said this: pic.twitter.com/6nIOaUXJmN
— Charles Weber (@CWBOCA) July 31, 2024
Now, ask yourself why Harris previously leaned on her Indian heritage before changing course and publicly identifying more as biracial or even primarily black. You've already seen the answer. When she was elected to the Senate, there was nothing historic about her candidacy or her election as a black woman.
The first African Americans elected to the Senate were elected in the 1870s. The first African American elected to the Senate after the start of the Civil Rights Movement was Sen. Edward Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican. Kamala also wouldn't even have been the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, a distinction that goes to Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.
Related: Nate Silver Warns That Kamala Harris Has One Big Problem
Obviously, the only way for Harris to brand herself historic at the time she was elected to the Senate was to lean on her Indian heritage. Now she's completely rebranded herself as a black woman, even adopting a phony accent during a campaign rally in Atlanta. Why? So she can appeal to the black voters who have started to shift to Trump.
Once again, she has proven herself to be the John Kerry of 2024. Kerry was known for his flip-flopping on issues during his 2004 presidential campaign as well as for his racial pandering. "President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second," he said.
Say what you want about Trump's performance at the Q&A, but he succeeded in making this a topic of discussion. And that won't help Kamala.
