Vance calls reaction to Trump’s attacks on Harris’s heritage ‘hysterical’

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP nominee for vice president, defended his running mate’s attacks Wednesday on Vice President Harris’s biracial heritage, calling the reaction “hysterical” and comparing Harris to a “chameleon.”

Vance was asked by reporters traveling aboard his campaign plane about former President Trump’s comments earlier in the day in which he mocked Harris’s heritage and falsely claimed the vice president “became a Black person.”

“I frankly just think it's hysterical how much the media is overreacting to it,” Vance said while traveling to a campaign rally in Arizona. 

“The President doesn't do scripted BS stuff. He actually goes into hostile audiences, he answers tough questions, he pushes back against them, but he actually answers them and how nice it is to have an American leader who's not afraid to go into hostile places and actually answer some tough questions,” Vance continued. 

“So what he said, I thought it was hysterical. I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “She’s flip flopped on every issue. She’s fake. She’s phony. And I think our whole campaign is going to have a very fun time pointing that out. And it sounds like the president kicked us off in stride.”

NOTUS first reported on Vance's comments.

Trump earlier Wednesday sat for an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, where he was asked about claims from other Republicans that Harris was only elevated to the top of the Democratic ticket because of her race and gender.

“I’ve known her a long time indirectly. Not directly very much,” Trump said. “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,” he continued. 

“She has always identified as a Black woman,” ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott interjected.

“But you know what, I respect either one. But she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way then all of a sudden she made a turn. And she became a Black person. And I think somebody should look into that,” Trump said.

Harris is Indian American and African American. Her mother emigrated to the United States from India, and her father emigrated from Jamaica. She also attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., where she was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Wednesday’s remarks were not the first time Trump or his allies have attacked Harris’ biracial background.

Donald Trump Jr. in 2019 shared and later deleted a tweet from a right-wing account that claimed Harris was “not an American Black.”

Trump himself in 2020 floated the false theory that Harris might not be eligible to serve as vice president because her parents were immigrants. He was also a leading proponent of the false conspiracy theory that former President Obama was not born in the United States.