Trump condemned for questioning Harris’s identity after ex-president lies repeatedly in heated interview with Black journalists - live | US elections 2024
Trump hits out at Black journalists and repeatedly lies in heated interview before Q&A is cut short
The interview with Donald Trump at the NABJ conference is now over, with Trump giving a few fist pumps and shaking hands with the interviewers before walking off stage.
The interview, which lasted around 40 minutes, got off to a rocky start, with Trump accusing interviewers of asking “rude” questions and calling their networks “fake news” before blaming the conference’s speakers for his lateness.
In addition to multiple tangents on how he is allegedly persecuted by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and a supposedly “weaponized” justice system, Trump refused to condemn the January 6 insurrectionists, continued to espouse the lie that Democrats are “executing” babies after birth, and vowed to close the borders on his first day in office if he becomes president.
Throughout the interview, Trump’s responses drew multiple gasps and shouts from the crowd.
He also defended JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” said he “didn’t know [Harris] was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black,” and described a “Black job” as “anybody that has a job”.
The interview was cut short after Trump’s team apparently asked interviewers to end the Q&A. ABC’s Rachel Scott told the audience: “I think we have to leave it there, by the Trump team. That is the last word.” Trump reacted with a bemused expression before getting off the stage.
Key events
When asked by Fox News journalist Harris Faulkner whether JD Vance would be ready for day one, Donald Trump said:
I’ve always had great respect for him … but I will say this, and I think this is well-documented historically, the vice-president in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact.
You’re voting for the president, and you can have a vice-president who’s outstanding in every way. And I think JD is, I think that all of them would have been but, but you’re not voting that way. You’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me.
Asked by Harris Faulkner if JD Vance is ready on day one, Trump answers: “Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact...Virtually never has it mattered.” pic.twitter.com/ggS74VXMdn
Trump's remarks on Harris at NABJ "repulsive" – White House
Lauren Gambino
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, responded while at the podium in the daily media briefing to Donald Trump’s comments about Kamala Harris’s identity at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention.
Jean-Pierre, speaking in real time in the west wing in Washington DC while Trump was being quizzed by three political journalists in Chicago, called his words “repulsive”.
The former president said that he didn’t know Harris was Black until a few years ago when she “happened to turn Black”.
Jean-Pierre said: “It’s insulting, and no one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify.” Jean-Pierre is the first Black and first openly LGBTQ+ American to serve as White House press secretary.
She continued, of Harris: “Only she can speak to her experience.”
Harris grew up in Berkeley, California, near San Francisco; her mother was an immigrant from India and her father immigrated to the US from Jamaica.
“I think it’s insulting for anybody, it doesn’t matter if it’s a former leader, a former president, it is insulting,” Jean-Pierre said, adding: “She is the vice-president of the United States. Kamala Harris. We have to put some respect on her name. Period.”
Karine Jean-Pierre arrives before a press briefing at the White House in Washington, on 31 July 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters
Summary of Trump's NABJ interview
Donald Trump’s NABJ interview shocked the audience and ended up being cut short, apparently by his team. Here are some of the things the former president claimed in the heated Q&A:
He claimed that he has been the “best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln”, adding that a “Black job” is “anybody that has a job”.
He questioned Kamala Harris’s ethnicity, saying: “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.”
He refused to condemn the white police officer who shot and killed 36-year-old Sonya Massey, a Black woman, in her home in Illinois, saying: “Sometimes very bad decisions are made. They’re not made from an evil standpoint.”
He repeated the abortion lie that Democrats are allowing abortions in the ninth month, saying: “They’re allowing the death of the baby after the baby is born.”
In response to what he would do on his first day in office, he said that he would “close the border” and “drill, baby, drill”.
Throughout the interview, which appeared to have been ended by his team after 40 minutes, Trump’s responses drew multiple gasps and shouts from the crowd.
Trump hits out at Black journalists and repeatedly lies in heated interview before Q&A is cut short
The interview with Donald Trump at the NABJ conference is now over, with Trump giving a few fist pumps and shaking hands with the interviewers before walking off stage.
The interview, which lasted around 40 minutes, got off to a rocky start, with Trump accusing interviewers of asking “rude” questions and calling their networks “fake news” before blaming the conference’s speakers for his lateness.
In addition to multiple tangents on how he is allegedly persecuted by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and a supposedly “weaponized” justice system, Trump refused to condemn the January 6 insurrectionists, continued to espouse the lie that Democrats are “executing” babies after birth, and vowed to close the borders on his first day in office if he becomes president.
Throughout the interview, Trump’s responses drew multiple gasps and shouts from the crowd.
He also defended JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” said he “didn’t know [Harris] was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black,” and described a “Black job” as “anybody that has a job”.
The interview was cut short after Trump’s team apparently asked interviewers to end the Q&A. ABC’s Rachel Scott told the audience: “I think we have to leave it there, by the Trump team. That is the last word.” Trump reacted with a bemused expression before getting off the stage.
In response to a question on what he would do on his first day as president if he wins, Donald Trump responded:
I close the border. And I do two things, because I can do a lot of things. I close the border. And we don’t want people coming. We want people to come in … but they have to be vetted. They have to be checked. They have to come in legally …
And I drill. Drill, baby, drill. I bring energy way down. I bring interest rates down. I bring inflation way down. So people can buy bacon again, so people can buy a ham sandwich again, so that people can go to a restaurant and afford it because right now people can’t buy food.
One of the next questions asked of Donald Trump is whether he believes the Republican party is getting “too judgy about people’s lives”.
In response, Trump touted several false statements, saying that Democrats are “radical on abortion because they’re allowing abortion in the ninth month. They’re allowing the death of the baby after the baby is born.”
Trump’s lie was swiftly fact-checked on the spot, with the interviewers saying: “That’s illegal in all 50 states.”
He nevertheless continued with the false statement about abortions, saying: “Most Republicans believe in the exception, but they don’t want to see an abortion in the ninth month or the eighth month.”
We are more than 15 minutes into the NABJ interview with Donald Trump, and the former president has already butted heads multiple times with the interviewers.
In addition to frequently interrupting them, Trump has blamed the conferences’s speakers for his lateness, accused the interviewers’ questions of being “rude” and their networks, including ABC, of being “fake news”.
At one point, when one of the interviewers told Trump she would like to move on to other questions following his tangent on his alleged political persecution, Trump replied: “You’re the one that held me up 35 minutes.”
Donald Trump was asked about Sonya Massey, the 36-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed in her home by a white police officer in Illinois on 6 July.
Specifically, the question was about Trump’s previous comments on police officers needing to have immunity and why someone like the officer, who has been charged with murder in the case of Sonya Massey’s killing, should get immunity.
Trump responded:
I don’t know the exact case, but I saw something, and it didn’t look, it didn’t look good to me. It didn’t look good to me …
I’m saying if I felt, or if a group of people would feel, that somebody was being unfairly prosecuted because the person did a good job … or made a mistake, an innocent mistake, there’s a big difference between being a bad person and making an innocent mistake. But if somebody made an innocent mistake, I would want to help that person …
Sometimes very bad decisions are made. They’re not made from an evil standpoint.
Trump then went on a tangent of being “prosecuted because I’m a political opponent of two people that have weaponized our justice system”.
In response to what Donald Trump’s message is today and why he chose to appear at the conference, Trump touted his typical anti-immigration rhetoric, saying:
My message is to stop people from invading our country that are taking, frankly, a lot of problems with it. But one of the big problems, and a lot of the journalists in this room, I know, and I have great respect for a lot of the journalists in this room are Black … They’re coming in, and they’re coming in, they’re invading. It’s an invasion of millions of people … The first group of people, the Black population, is affected most by that and Kamala is allowing it to happen.
Trump was also asked what a “Black job” is, to which he said:
A Black job is anybody that has a job. That’s what it is.
In response to a question on whether he believes Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman, Donald Trump said:
So I’ve known her a long time indirectly and 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. So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?
In response to a question on why Black voters should trust Donald Trump following his track record of inappropriate comments towards Black communities, Trump said:
First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question so horrible manner. First question, you don’t even say hello. How are you? Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network, and I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in history. I love the Black population of this country …
I think it’s a very rude introduction. I don’t know exactly why you would do something like that.
I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.
Donald Trump has just walked on stage.
The interviewers also said that the interview will be live-fact-checked live.
The NABJ interview with Donald Trump is about to begin.
Interviewers Kadia Goba of Semafor, Rachel Scott of ABC News and Harris Faulkner of Fox News have just walked on stage.
Donald Trump has fired off another post on Truth Social, blaming the conference’s speakers for his lateness:
I’ve been waiting for a half hour. The speaker equipment at the NABJ is not working properly. Don’t blame me for being late.
