In late July, Donald J. Trump said at a gathering of Black journalists in Chicago that “all of a sudden,” Vice President Kamala Harris had “made a turn and she became a Black person.”
On Tuesday, standing feet from Ms. Harris on the debate stage, Mr. Trump said “whatever she wants to be is OK with me.”
But his attempt to take back his racial attack didn’t stick. Minutes later, when pressed by moderators to further explain the remark, he went on to say that “all I can say is, I read where she was not Black, that she put out.” He continued: “And I’ll say that, and then I read that she was Black. And that’s OK. Either one was OK with me. That’s up to her.”
Mr. Trump’s initial remarks this summer were a flashpoint for the Trump campaign. The former president was slammed with criticism, jeopardizing an opportunity to make gains amid a Black electorate that had been softening in its support for Democrats. Ms. Harris has since made strides with Black voters.
On Tuesday, she used her response to make an extended appeal for less divisive politics. She said it was a “tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has, consistently, over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people.” She cited Mr. Trump’s harsh comments about the Central Park Five, the five Black and Latino men who were wrongly convicted of the rape of a jogger in New York City, and the lie that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
“I think the American people want better than that,” Ms. Harris said.
Ms. Harris’s father was born in Jamaica, and her mother was born in India. She has long embraced both her Black and South Asian identity. Ms. Haris attended Howard University, a historically Black institution. While she was a United States senator, her official biography described her as “the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history.” Her White House biography says she is “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected to this position.”