JD Vance, who has spoken of how his three biracial children have been targeted by racist attacks, is defending Donald Trump’s attack on Kamala Harris’ biracial identity as “totally reasonable.”
The GOP vice presidential nominee told CNN on Thursday that Trump was merely portraying Harris as a “chameleon” when he falsely said Wednesday that the de facto Democratic presidential nominee “happened to turn Black” after initially identifying as Indian American.
When asked whether Trump’s comments — which were roundly condemned as racist and even alarmed some Republicans — gave him pause, the Ohio senator said they did not. Vance added:
Look, all he said is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon. She goes to Georgia two days ago — she was raised in Canada — she puts on a fake Southern accent. She is everything to everybody, and she pretends to be something different depending on which audience she’s in front of. I think it’s totally reasonable for the president to call that out, and that’s all he did.
This wasn’t the first time that Vance — who himself has had the authenticity of his Appalachian ties called into question — has used the line of attack on the vice president. At a campaign rally earlier this week, he said that Harris had used “a fake Southern accent” during an event in Atlanta and suggested that she was more Canadian than American. (Harris lived in Canada for about six years as a teenager.)
The ease with which Vance endorsed Trump’s attack on Harris should put past comments of his own under scrutiny. While running for the Senate in 2022, Vance pushed back on his Democratic opponent’s charge that he was promoting the “great replacement” theory — even though he manifestly did — and pointed to his children, who are white and Indian, as proof that he had not engaged in racism.
“What happens is that my own children, my biracial children, get attacked by scumbags online and in person because you are so desperate for political power that you’ll accuse me, the father of three beautiful biracial babies, of engaging in racism,” Vance said at the time. That Vance has decried racist attacks on his children and yet is now endorsing an attack on his political opponent’s biracial identity is worth noting. In his comments to CNN, Vance appeared to equate Harris’ leaning into her different racial identities at different times as part of a broader pattern of her flip-flopping on issues. But there’s a difference between changing one’s stance on a topic — as Vance himself has done — and the immutable fact of Harris’ biracial identity. Vance, as the father of biracial children himself, should know that.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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