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Posted: 2024-08-01T20:20:15Z | Updated: 2024-08-01T20:20:15Z Raphael Warnock Calls Out 'Sad Irony' After Trump Questions Kamala Harris' Race | HuffPost

Raphael Warnock Calls Out 'Sad Irony' After Trump Questions Kamala Harris' Race

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, had falsely accused Harris of not previously identifying as Black.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) has called out the sad irony in former President Donald Trumps recent attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris , in which he questioned her Black racial identity. 

During a Wednesday appearance on CNN s Laura Coates Live, Warnock slammed Trump, who spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention  in Chicago earlier that day, for promoting division and hatred by falsely accusing Harris of not previously identifying as Black .

He doesnt even recognize the sad irony of his remark, said Warnock, who is Black. In a real sense, Kamala Harris story is an iteration of the American story. The diversity that is among us and often within us. 

She carries that literally in her veins, he later continued. In that sense, he doesnt know who we are.

If you dont know us, you cant represent us you certainly cant lead us.

Among the several falsehoods Trump spewed onstage during his contentious appearance at the NABJ convention, the former president implied that Harris had previously only identified as Indian.

Ive known [Harris] a long time indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage, Trump said. I didnt 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 dont know, is she Indian or is she Black?

She has always identified as a Black woman, said Rachel Scott, a senior congressional correspondent for ABC News.

I respect either one, but she obviously doesnt, Trump continued. I think somebody should look into that.

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Former President Donald Trump photographed during his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention on July 31 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson via Getty Images

Harris is both Black and South Asian. She was born in California and is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

The vice president, who attended a historically Black university and is a member of a historically Black sorority, has always identified as a Black woman

Others have called out the fact that attacks on Harris Black racial identity disregard the differences between race, ethnicity and nationality .

Harris responded to Trumps remarks during an appearance hours later at a conference in Houston, Texas, hosted by the historically Black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho.

The vice president told the crowd that Trumps remarks were the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect.

The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts, she said. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us.

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