Republican candidate for president of the USA, former head of state Donald Trump today questioned the racial affiliation of his likely opponent from the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, while speaking before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, and that gathering soon became tense and antagonistic.
Trump made the claim that Harris, the first woman of color of Asian-American origin to become the vice president of the country, had previously emphasized only her Indian origin, but not her black Jamaican origin.
"I didn't know she was black until a few years ago, well, she turned into a black woman, and now she wants to be recognized as black. Well, I wouldn't know if she's Indian or if she's black?" Trump said on the annual convention of the Association.
Harris attended Howard University, one of the most significant and historically important colleges and universities attended by black Americans, where she was also in a "sorority" of black students. As a senator, she was a member of the "Black Caucus" of the US Congress and supported the legislative proposals of her colleagues aimed at strengthening voting rights and political reform.
Trump has repeatedly attacked his opponents and critics on racial grounds. When he began to stand out among Republicans, he propagated the false theory that then-President Barack Obama - the first black American head of state - was not born in the United States.
During this year's Republican nominations for the party's presidential candidate, Trump systematically referred to the former head of diplomacy in his administration, Nikki Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as "Nimbra," mocking her full birth name and surname, Nimarat Niki Randava.
Trump's appearance at the annual gathering of the African American Journalists Association soon became heated, so the former president got into an argument with an ABC News reporter and assessed that she had a "very rude introduction" to his speech: she asked him a difficult first question about his criticism of black people and black journalists, his attacks on black prosecutors and the dinner he hosted at his club in Florida for a "white supremacist" propagandist.
"I think this is shameful; I came here with good intentions. I love the black population of this country; I've done so much for the black population of this country," Trump said, continuing his attack on ABC, the TV network he is asking not to host. next presidential debate, although he previously agreed with it.
Trump repeated his false claims that illegal immigrants were "taking black jobs", and when an ABC reporter, with whom he argued, asked him what a "black job" was, Trump replied with "any job" - which is caused an outcry in the hall.
At one point he said: "I was the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln", and the audience responded with shouts of "Wow!".
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