'Kamala Chameleon'? Trump’s new line of attack hits Harris on shifting background

Former President Donald Trump’s latest approach to Vice President Kamala Harris has been to cast her as a chameleon who adjusts her professed background, beliefs, and persona to match relevant audiences and whom the voters cannot trust to truthfully represent herself or her campaign.

"The contrast could not be more stark,” Trump said at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa. “On the one hand, you have a radical left puppet candidate who is fake, fake, fake, and on the other hand, You have a president who will fight, fight for America.”

Just below Trump on the ticket, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, suggested Thursday that Harris had a “fundamental chameleon-like nature” and adjusted her persona to her audience, NOTUS reported. "When asked by a reporter explicitly if he questions whether Harris is Black, Vance said, 'What I question is why she presents a different posture depending on which audience that she’s in front of.'"

The Trump team’s lines of attack have largely addressed her ever-changing self-description of her ethnic background and what he saw as a shift in the vice president’s presentation of it. Harris, Trump has contended, previously emphasized her Indian heritage but has shifted focus toward her black background amid her ascent to the top of the party ticket.

Harris was born to a Jamaican father, Donald Jasper Harris, and an Indian mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan Harris. Both immigrated to the U.S. in the late 20th century. Throughout her career, the media has emphasized different components of her diverse background.

The vice president’s campaign and her supporters have heavily emphasized her racial background. Her campaign hauled in roughly $200 million within the first week of her candidacy, with much of that sum stemming from Zoom calls directed to and inviting specific gender and/or racial groups. Those calls heavily emphasized Harris’s racial background and invoked concepts such as “white privilege” in justifying their support for Harris. Reason magazine said "There were a lot of privilege acknowledgments, paired with scorn for any white women who might use their privilege in ways that Democrats don't like."

 “We are here because… BIPOC women have tapped us in as white women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season,” influence Arielle Fodor said in a now-infamous Zoom call directed to white women. A separate Zoom call organized by the Win with Black Woman coalition saw participants refer to Harris as “our sister.”

But Trump has insisted that Harris’s representation of her heritage has been varying and opportunistic, asserting that she was a “phony.”

Trump suggests Harris flipped racial identities

Speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention on Wednesday, Trump addressed Harris’s ancestry, saying “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?” he added. 

Harris, has previously stated that her mother raised her as a black woman. She attended Howard University, a historically black institution. The remarks drew a litany of condemnatory headlines and drew sharp reactions from black officials in the Biden administration, such as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

But Trump and the campaign have doubled down, evidently hoping to shape the narrative. Two advisors to Trump told Just the News that his raising the issue of Harris’s background at the NABJ was deliberate and designed to get her discussing race rather than her prosecutorial record, which she had highlighted in contrast to Trump’s status as a convicted felon.

Harris fakes a southern accent

The black vote is of critical importance to the Democratic Party, particularly in southern swing states such as North Carolina and Georgia. Harris, for her part, held a rally in Atlanta this week with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, in part hoping to galvanize that portion of the electorate.

Fueling Trump’s attacks was an awkward moment from that event in which Harris herself faked a southern accent, telling supporters that "You all helped us win in 2020, and we gon' do it again in 2024.”

"Did you hear a new accent? If I ever did that... I'd have a week of Hell if I ever tried to do that,” Trump said at the Harrisburg rally, referencing the incident.

JUST IN: VP Kamala Harris unveils her new southern accent in Atlanta, Georgia.

"You all helped us in 2020, and we gon' do it again in twenty twenty fouah."

Harris also bragged about her track record on illegal immigration.

"I will proudly put my record against his any day of… pic.twitter.com/pe4yeQlNvJ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 30, 2024

Cooking with Mindy Kaling

Trump’s initial remarks at the NABJ drew critical headlines, but he insists on highlighting Harris’s own past public embrace of her Indian heritage. After his remarks, he subsequently posted video footage of Harris with actress Mindy Kaling in which Harris affirmed that she was Indian. Kaling, whose real name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam, is of Indian descent, and was born in Cambridge, Mass.

“Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” Trump posted.

The clip dates from Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign and shows Harris and Kaling preparing to cook an Indian recipe while discussing their shared Indian background.

“Ok, so what we’re gonna cook today is an Indian recipe, because you are Indian,” Kaling told Harris, to which she replied “yes.”

“I don’t know that everybody knows that,” Kaling went on. “But I find that, wherever I go, and I see Indian people at the supermarket, everyone is like ‘you know Kamala Harris is Indian right?’ It’s like our thing we are so excited about to like have you running for president.”

“So, we are both Indian, but actually we’re both South Indian,” Kaling continued. Harris then claimed that she was raised eating South Indian food and stated that Kaling resembled “one–half of my family.”

Picture with grandparents and sister

Trump on Thursday posted a photo of Harris with her grandparents and sister Meena clad in traditional Indian clothing. The photo shows Harris sporting a Bindi, a traditional Hindu forehead mark worn by women.

The exact date of the photo is somewhat unclear, but is decades old.

“Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago! Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated,” Trump said.

Kamala ‘chameleon’

Trump himself is not the only Republican to raise the issue. His running mate, JD Vance, defended Trump’s NABJ remarks during a campaign appearance in Arizona.

“So what he said, I thought it was hysterical. I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance said, according to NOTUS. And you guys saw yesterday, she was in Georgia, and she put on a southern accent for a Georgia audience. She grew up in Vancouver. What the hell is going on here? She is not who she pretends to be.”

“What I question is why she presents a different posture depending on which audience that she’s in front of,” he added.

"While Phony Kamala Harris is fake, fake[,] fake – President Trump is going to fight, fight, fight to make America great again!" Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Just the News.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X.