Vance and other Trump allies amplify a false claim about Harris’ racial identity

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, defended on Wednesday a false claim the former president made about Vice President Kamala Harris ' racial identity, suggesting wrongly that Harris had downplayed her Black heritage in trying to suggest she’s inauthentic.

“What I took it as was an attack on Kamala Harris being a chameleon,” he told reporters when asked in Michigan about the former president’s suggestion that Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, had only recently identified as Black.

“I think he was observing the basic foundational reality that Kamala Harris pretends to be something different depending on what audience she’s speaking to,” Vance said. “She fakes who she is depending on the audience she’s in front of, and that’s who she is and that’s who she’s always been.”

Vance’s was the most recent of the Republican criticisms of how Harris portrays herself, in the wake of Trump’s comments last week to the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a high-profile Trump surrogate who is a Black man, echoed the claim on Sunday as a guest on ABC’s “This Week.”

The proliferation of Trump’s falsehood by other Republicans is part of their effort to stay in his favor, said former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

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