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Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed Donald Trump is “unaware of race and gender” in defense of the former president after he questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s race.
“I didn’t know she was Black,” the former president said Wednesday during a tense question-and-answer session with the National Association of Black Journalists conference.
Trump continued: “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? ... 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’s father is from Jamaica and her mother is Indian.
On Thursday morning, Kilmeade admitted that bringing up Kamala Harris’ race was not a “winning issue” before saying whether she’s Black or Indian, “it doesn’t matter.”
“He’s just running against a Democrat. I think the thing is, President Trump is so unaware of race and gender,” Kilmeade continued.
“A lot of people say: ‘Wow you don’t talk to women like that. You don’t talk to minorities like that.’ He said ‘I’m running against that person.’ That’s all he sees,” the Fox anchor added.
The co-hosts also discussed the series of questions that Trump faced, which the former president described as “nasty” and said the questions were asked “in a horrible manner.”
Kilmeade advised: “In that situation, you should really be briefed ahead of time that you’re probably going to be walking into a hostile environment.”
In contrast to Kilmeade’s defense of Trump, Jessica Tarlov, co-host of Fox News’ “The Five,” called his NABJ interview a “complete dumpster fire for the former president.”
Many others have criticized Trump’s remarks. Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications, similarly wrote on X: “An absolute dumpster fire of a performance by Trump from start to finish.”
Republican strategist Sarah Longwell also slammed Trump’s showing, telling CNN: “He looked old, he looked unable to parry in the conversation, unable to grab a thread and talk about it effectively, drive a message. That was one of the worst performances I’ve seen.”
Political commentator Jon Favreau tweeted: “I cannot believe this Trump interview with Black journalists is real. This may be one of the worst interviews he’s ever done, and that’s saying something.
Later on Wednesday, Harris herself responded to his comments. The presumptive Democratic nominee told Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority sisters at a Houston event that Trump’s remarks were just “the same old show” of “divisiveness and disrespect.”
In the short time that she has run for the White House, Harris has faced a barrage of racist attacks, with a number of Republicans calling her a “DEI” hire.
