Republicans wary of using DEI against Harris as Trump jokes about her being ‘Indian or black’

Congressional Republicans are wary of using diversity, equity and inclusion politics to criticize Vice President Harris, with some urging former President Trump to stick to “the issues.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Trump’s path to victory is through arguing the issues and not getting bogged down in racial politics. His comments came after Trump mentioned Harris’ race during an event with the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.

“The campaign is, needs to be, must be about the issues, and there’s plenty to talk about. I just think that’s where the focus needs to be. That’s how we’re going to win in November,” Thune told reporters when asked about Trump’s remarks.

Trump appeared to crack jokes about Harris’ heritage during his remarks to the NABJ, expressing confusion about whether she was Indian or black.

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“I’ve known her a long time indirectly. Not directly very much,” Trump said. “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.”

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“So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?” he added.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged Republican lawmakers not to go down the DEI route when attacking Harris as well.

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“This election … is going to be about policies, not personalities. This isn’t personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” Johnson said in a press conference last week.”Her ethnicity, her gender, has nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., jumped on Trump’s comments almost immediately on Wednesday. 

“I’ll tell you what it’s not: It’s not surprising. This is who Donald Trump is. This is the politics of insult, of revenge and resentment and retribution, and I suspect we’ll hear that all the way until November,” he said.

“I think at the end of the day the people of America are going to reject that. They know what Kamala Harris represents,” he continued.

“Here’s a woman who is the daughter of a Jamaican man and an East-Asian immigrant mother. She went to Howard University. She’s married to a Jewish man,” Warnock added. “She embodies in her life story the American covenant, E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. Donald Trump doesn’t understand that.