White House press secretary calls Trump's comments on Harris' race 'repulsive'
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against former President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he questioned Vice President Kamala Harris' race during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Chicago.
Trump refused to answer a question by ABC News' Rachel Scott if Harris, who is Black and Indian, was a "DEI hire," an argument floated by some Republicans last week.
"She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “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?"
He later said, "I really don't know, could be, could be, there are some."
Jean-Pierre criticized those comments during the daily White House briefing that was going on at the same time.
"As a person of color, as a Black woman who is in this position, that is standing before you at this podium, behind this lectern, what he just said, what you just read out to me is repulsive. It's insulting," she said. "And no one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify. That is no one's right. It is someone's own decisions."
Jean-Pierre added that Harris -- who attended Howard University, an HBCU, and was a member of the Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha -- is the vice president and said that people have to "put some respect on her name."
"It doesn't matter if it's a former leader, a former president. It is insulting. And we have to put -- she is the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. We have to put some respect on her name," Jean-Pierre said.
-ABC News' Michelle Stoddart
