Vance defends Trump over former president’s false claims about Harris’ racial identity

(CNN) — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Thursday defended Donald Trump’s false comments about Kamala Harris’ racial identity, saying that it was “totally reasonable” for his ticket mate to describe the vice president as someone who “pretends to be somebody different, depending on the audience she’s talking to.”

The Ohio senator’s comments, in an interview with CNN’s Steve Contorno, came the day after Trump said at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention that Harris – the biracial daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father who both immigrated to the United States — “happened to turn Black” in recent years.

Vance, who is the father of three biracial children, said Trump’s comments “don’t give me pause at all.”

“Look, all he said is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon,” said Vance, who was on a visit to the US-Mexico in Cochise County, Arizona.

Vance said Harris was “raised in Canada” – she spent her teenage years in Montreal, where her mother had moved for work – and claimed the vice president used “a fake Southern accent” earlier this week while campaigning in Atlanta before a largely Black crowd in the battleground state.

“She is everything to everybody, and she pretends to be somebody different depending on which audience she is in front of. I think it’s totally reasonable for the president to call that out, and that’s all he did,” Vance said.

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign responded to Vance’s remarks by calling him “the most unpopular Vice Presidential nominee in history.”

“JD Vance and Donald Trump are trafficking in hatred and lies to divide the American people, because with no positive vision to move our country forward, all they can do is drag us back,” spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

Trump ignited a political controversy, and potentially endangered his campaign’s efforts to make inroads with non-White voters, with his answer Wednesday to a question at the NABJ convention about whether he agreed with Republicans on Capitol Hill who have described Harris as a “DEI hire” – the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion.

“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?” the former president said.

Trump’s remarks are false – Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, and attended the historically Black Howard University in Washington, has never downplayed her racial identity. They are also reminiscent of his similar attacks on Black political rivals in the past, including the years he spent pushing the false, racist “birther” conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Harris, in a Wednesday night speech at a Black sorority gathering in Houston, responded to Trump’s remarks, saying that “it was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect. Let me just say, the American people deserve better.”

Previously, Vance was a harsh critic of Trump, whom he once called a “moral disaster” and “reprehensible,” and accused of campaigning using racist rhetoric. The Ohio Republican has also changed his positions on other issues: In emails with a former law school friend a decade ago, Vance said he hated the police – which is at odds with his vocal support for police now.

Asked by CNN if he, too, would be a chameleon by his own definition, Vance said Harris has not explained her reversals on policy stances she took in 2019, as a candidate for president.

He said Harris should “explain why she wanted to ban fracking and now she doesn’t, or why she wanted to defund the police and now she doesn’t, or why she wanted to open the border but now she doesn’t.”

“It’s reasonable to change your mind,” Vance said. “It’s not reasonable to run and hide from the media and not answer the American people’s questions.”

Ready to be president?

In the interview, Vance also defended Trump after the former president did not directly answer a question at the NABJ convention about whether the Ohio senator was ready to be president. Trump said voters generally cast their ballots based on the top of the ticket, not the vice presidential pick.

“I’m absolutely ready to be president on Day One,” he said. “I’ve been a businessman, I’ve been a United States Marine, I’ve been a senator. I can do the job. But politically, he’s just right. People are voting for Donald Trump.”

Prisoner swap

Vance credited Trump – not the Biden administration – for the prisoner swap between the United States, several other Western nations and Russia that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, among others, from Russian prisons.

Vance said the exchange was “great news, at least what little we know.”

“We certainly want these Americans to come back home. It was ridiculous that they were in prison to begin with,” Vance said.

“But we have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home?” he said. “And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house. That’s a good thing, and I think it’s a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.”

Hitting Harris on border security

Vance criticized how the Biden administration has handled border security as he visited the US-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday.

He and Trump have highlighted Harris’ task of addressing the root causes of migration in Central America – calling her Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White House has disputed. Harris’ work on the border dates to March 2021. During an influx of unaccompanied migrant children, Biden entrusted the vice president with overseeing diplomatic efforts in Central America, seeing the assignment as a sign of respect, having done the same job himself under Obama.

Harris, meanwhile, has lambasted Trump for opposing a bipartisan immigration and border security measure that included some of the toughest border security measures in recent memory – leading Republicans on Capitol Hill to oppose that bill.

Vance said the bill “was actually a massive giveaway to illegal immigrants. It would not have solved any of the problems that Kamala Harris has caused.”

He said the Biden administration should instead take executive action.

“They have the tools necessary,” Vance said. “They just need to empower Border Patrol to tell people who want to come in illegally, ‘You’re not allowed to do that.’ They just need to use the authority that the border czar, Kamala Harris, has.”

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