Byron Donalds: Trump's comments on Harris' race 'a side issue'

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., a prominent ally of Donald Trump, on Sunday dismissed the recent controversy over the former president's comments on Vice President Kamala Harris' race.

Donalds engaged in a testy interview with "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos over comments Trump made at the National Association of Black Journalists conference last week in which he falsely said that Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, only recently began to identify as Black.

"She is biracial. She has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, she's always identified as both. Why are you questioning that?" Stephanopoulos asked Donalds on Sunday.

"Well, George, first of all, this is something that's actually a conversation throughout social media right now. There were a lot of people who are trying to figure this out. But again, that's a side issue, not the main issue," Donalds said, pivoting to Harris' record in President Joe Biden's administration.

The back-and-forth went on for several minutes, with Stephanopoulos pressing Donalds on why Republicans were having the conversation about Harris' race in the first place.

"Why do you insist on questioning her racial identity?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"He talked about it on stage yesterday in Atlanta for what, two minutes? He spent more than 35, 40 minutes going after her record talking about how radical of a senator that she was," Donalds said. "He talked about the job that she did as vice president of the United States."

Donalds also defended Trump for saying he'd pardon rioters who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

The former president raised eyebrows when he said at last week's conference that he'd pardon those who assaulted police officers if they were found "innocent" -- prompting ABC News' Rachel Scott to point out that many had, in fact, been convicted.

Donalds grappled with Stephanopoulos over the wording of Trump's answer but insisted that the former president would not pardon people who attacked law enforcement officers.

"Of course, if somebody was beating up a police officer at Jan. 6, he's [Trump] not going to do that. But if you had people who were just walking through the Capitol, which did occur on January 6, because the security protocols had changed because of that riot at the Capitol, then what he would do is not allow them to be held in jail with these massively increased charges," Donalds said.

"My question is on those rioters who assaulted officers, would you pardon those people," Stephanopoulos responded. "They are not innocent. They are convicted. He said he would pardon them."

"George, what I'm telling you is he's gonna go back and look at these cases because it is without a doubt, and look, Jan. 6 is a very painful memory in our country. But it is without a doubt that the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia was super-charging these people because of political viewpoints," Donalds said.

Donalds claimed that Trump has been treated differently than Biden or other Democrats by the Department of Justice, leading Stephanopoulos to point out that Hunter Biden, the president's son, was also charged by the DOJ.