JD Vance, who has three biracial children with his wife of Indian heritage, has tried to brush off Donald Trump’s stunning attack on Kamala Harris’ racial heritage by calling the backlash “hysterical.”
The Republican vice presidential nominee – who is also facing backlash over his misogynistic comments branding Harris and other women “childless cat ladies” – was asked about the former president’s comments on his campaign plane on the way to a rally in Arizona on Wednesday.
“I frankly just think it’s hysterical how much the media is overreacting to it,” he said, before leaping to defend Trump.
“How nice it is to have an American leader who’s not afraid to go into hostile places and actually answer some tough questions,” he said.
“I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance continued.
“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.”
The former president sparked outrage on Wednesday when he wildly questioned Harris’ heritage and claimed she “happened to turn Black” during an interview on stage at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.
“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,” the 78-year-old claimed to gasps from the crowd.
“So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
He added: “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
Harris is the first African-American and Asian-American vice president. Her father is Jamaican economist and Stanford University professor Donald J. Harris, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a biomedical scientist from India.
Vance’s defense of his running mate comes despite his own wife being of Indian heritage, meaning that his children are, like Harris, biracial.
Vance married Usha Chilukuri in an interfaith Christian and Hindu marriage ceremony in 2014 after the couple met while attending Yale Law School.
Republican Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton – a major MAGA loyalist – also jumped to defend Trump, telling CNN’s Kaitlin Collins that “of course” Trump’s comments are defensible.
But, when pushed to answer if questioning a fellow politician’s race is right and if it will even win any votes for the Republican Party, the senator avoided the question and instead labeled Harris as a “dangerous San Fransisco liberal”.
Vance and Collins are in something of a minority in defending Trump for his racially-charged comments.
Fellow Republican party member and former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan condemned Trump in a post on X.
“It’s unacceptable and abhorrent to attack Vice President Harris or anyone’s racial identity. The American People deserve better,” he wrote.
Harris responded to Trump later on Wednesday when she appeared at a Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority gathering in Houston, Texas.
The Democratic presidential candidate dismissed Trump’s comments as “the same old show of divisiveness and disrespect” and said: “America deserves better.”
Her potential vice presidential pick Arizona Senator Mark Kelly also blasted Trump by denouncing him as a “scared old man”.
“It was very obvious to me watching him, and just what I’ve seen over the last week while she’s been across the country just his kicking butt, that he’s afraid,” the senator added.
“He’s afraid to debate her. He’s certainly afraid to lose an election to her in November, and he’s afraid about his own future.”
Trump’s stunning comments are far from the first shocking remarks to come from his campaign.
Over the last week, Vance and Trump have been in damage control after a 2021 clip of the vice presidential candidate resurfaced showing him calling Harris and other Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives”.