Source: Tom Williams / Getty
Here’s a simple truth: Donald Trump made a fool of himself when he deemed it appropriate to be a white man questioning a Black woman’s racial identity before an audience of Black journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) annual convention in Chicago last week.
Now, GOPlantation Rep. Byron Donalds is serving as part of the clean-up crew of Republicans who are touring media outlets to either spin, downplay or outright lie about Trump’s racist, insulting and transparently performative behavior during the appearance. Now, Donalds isn’t a particularly clever spinster, so it appears his chosen strategy of deflection and dismissiveness is to pretend what happened “barely” even happened—while also doubling and tripling down on all of it.
“This is really a phony controversy,” Donalds told ABC host George Stephanopoulos. “I don’t really care, most people don’t, but if we’re going to be accurate, when Kamala Harris went into the United States Senate, it was AP that said she was the Indian-American United States senator. It was actually played up a lot.”
Byron Donalds predictably followed “if we’re going to be accurate” with a statement that was factually inaccurate. More on that in a second.
“And you just repeated the slur again. If it doesn’t matter, why do you all keep questioning her identity?” Stephanopoulos asked Donalds. “She’s always identified as a Black woman. She is biracial. She has a Jamaican father and Indian mother. She’s always identified as both. Why are you questioning that?”
“Well George, first of all, this is something that’s actually a conversation all throughout social media right now. There are a lot of people trying to figure this out,” Donalds responded, in direct contradiction to the assertion he had just made that “most people” don’t care about it.
“But again, that’s a side issue, not the main issue,” Donalds continued before Stephanopoulos interjected, saying, “Sir, one second. You just did it again. Why do you insist on questioning her racial identity?” to which Donalds said: “You want me to talk?”
The two continued to spar back and forth with Stephanopoulos continuing to call Donalds out for repeatedly perpetuating the same lie regarding the so-called “phony controversy,” and Donalds continuing to cite the AP article, which, by the way, didn’t at all say what he claimed it said.
Here’s what the 2016 AP article in question actually said:
“Harris will enter the chamber as the first Indian woman elected to a Senate seat and the second black woman, following Carol Moseley Braun, who served a single term after being elected in 1992.”
Here’s another simple truth: MAGA Republicans talk more about Kamala Harris’ race than Kamala Harris.
Before President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris, effectively making her the presumptive Democratic nominee, Republicans were already calling Harris a “DEI Hire,” despite the fact that the president appointed her to a position for which there is no existing diversity, equity and inclusion program. After news broke that Biden was stepping down and Harris was stepping up, they continued to refer to her as such. Meanwhile, Trump—who also made the “DEI hire” reference during the NABJ interview—is resurrecting the same racist “birther” attacks that failed twice to prevent former President Barack Obama from being elected to the White House. In fact, racist and sexist attacks on Harris have gotten so out of control in the MAGA world that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson felt compelled to convene a closed-door meeting last week to warn his fellow GOP legislators to stop being racist and sexist.
During the interview, Byron Donalds tried to dismiss the issue. He kept circling back to by claiming Trump “barely” mentioned Harris’ ethnicity during the NABJ appearance, conveniently missing the point that there was no reason to mention it at all, as he was not asked about the vice president’s racial identity. Trump was in front of a Black audience, and because he doesn’t actually know anything about Black people, he thought whitesplaining about it unprompted would win him some “Black friend” points, and it backfired. It’s also worth mentioning that, the very next day, he went out of his way to gaslight Harris by posting from his Truth Social platform, “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated,” along with an old photo of Harris with her family.
If Harris’ race is truly the side issue Byron Donalds claims it is, maybe he should tell Trump and many of his fellow MAGA enthusiasts that, because they are not getting the memo.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Campaign Appears To Place Token Black People Front And Center At Atlanta Rally
‘White Dudes For Harris’ Is Being Called Racist By Racist Conservatives
