PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former president Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance for promoting baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, using an appearance before Black journalists Tuesday to denounce what she called “hateful” and “exhausting” rhetoric designed to divide the country.
“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said during an interview with reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists. “I mean, my heart breaks for this community.” She criticized the GOP ticket for “spewing lies that are grounded in tropes that are age-old.”
Harris added that the attacks were part of a broader pattern of racial animosity exhibited by Trump, arguing that the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that Haitians were eating people’s pets was the latest example of why he “cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America.”
The comments on Springfield were Harris’s most forceful to the three journalists, in an interview designed both to court Black voters and present a contrast with Trump’s contentious sit-down with the group in July.
The conversation was Harris’s first extended engagement with a panel of journalists since launching her campaign almost two months ago, increasing its importance as early voting begins in several key states.
Vance, at a campaign event Tuesday in Michigan, was asked by a reporter about Harris’s comments on Springfield and the question was booed by the crowd. Vance said: “That’s basically my response. I’ll just put that in the paper. Loud boos and two thumbs down.”
He criticized journalists for highlighting the bomb threats in Springfield that followed Trump’s comments, citing a recent statement by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) that the threats had proved to be hoaxes and at least some were linked to a foreign country.
“The American media for three days has been lying and saying that Donald Trump and I are inciting bomb threats, when in reality the American media has been laundering foreign misinformation, and it’s disgusting,” Vance said.
In Philadelphia, Harris largely stuck to variations on well-honed comments, delivering familiar lines on issues including housing, child care, abortion and her own life story. At one point, she revealed that she had recently spoken with Trump “to see if he’s okay” after an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club Sunday.
Also Tuesday, the Harris campaign announced a mobilization effort aimed at engaging young people and voters of color. The mobilization effort and the NABJ event highlighted how Harris is turning to Democrats’ most loyal constituency even as she downplays issues of race in her own rhetoric, said Ashley Etienne, a former communications director for Harris who also worked on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
“She has got to supercharge Black engagement and turnout for sure,” Etienne said. “And I think Black people don’t necessarily need to hear that you’re Black. They know you’re Black. But I want to hear how much you’re for me.”
During his own appearance before a similar panel at NABJ’s conference in Chicago two months ago, Trump caused an uproar by falsely claiming that Harris — the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father — had exclusively embraced her Indian heritage, suggesting she had ignored her Black identity until it became politically convenient.
“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,” Trump said. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris, who attended Howard University, a historically Black institution, and joined a Black sorority there, has long embraced her Black identity. She has opted against making her race a central part of her presidential campaign, dismissing Trump’s comments about her racial background as the “same old show” but otherwise largely ignoring them.
“Next question,” she said when asked about Trump’s remarks in a CNN interview last month. She was not asked about the comments during the sit-down Tuesday.
But she did speak at length about race, laying out some of her plans to address the racial wealth gap, tackle Black maternal mortality and bring down the cost of living for struggling families. At one point, Harris was asked about how she would win over the votes of Black men when polls suggest a growing number are expressing interest in backing Trump.
“I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket — you’ve got to earn their vote,” Harris said. “So I’m working to earn the vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I’m Black.”
She continued by saying that she wanted to be “president for all Americans,” but would back policies that address some of the issues facing Black men, such as easing medical debt and expanding access to credit for small business.
The conversation also surfaced some issues Harris has rarely addressed during her upstart campaign. Asked about the idea of a commission to study reparations for descendants of the enslaved, the vice president said Congress, rather than the president, should take the lead on creating any such entity.
“I think Congress ultimately will have the ability to do this work,” she said. “I’m not discounting the importance of any executive action, but ultimately Congress — because if you’re going to talk about it in any substantial way, there will be hearings, there will be a level of public education and dialogue.”
Harris was also pressed about her position on the war in Gaza, including whether she would change U.S. policy toward Israel after largely backing the White House’s strong support of its military operation in the Palestinian enclave.
Harris said the Israel-Hamas war “has to end as soon as possible” by securing a hostage deal and a cease-fire, walking the fine line she has regularly navigated between expressing vigorous support for Israel’s right to defend itself and saying that how it does so matters.
Harris said she would not divulge private discussions she has had with foreign leaders, but she cited a Biden administration decision to pause a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel earlier this year and suggested there was other leverage that the administration had used.
Harris added that she has been “actively involved” in meeting with Israeli and Arab officials, emphasizing that after the war ends there should be no reoccupation of Gaza by Israel and no changing of territorial lines.
“We are doing the work of putting the pressure on all parties involved to get the [cease-fire and hostage] deal done,” Harris said. “But let me be very clear: I support Israel’s ability to defend itself, and I support the need for Palestinians to have dignity, self-determination and security as we move forward.”
The conversation with NABJ journalists was also the first time Harris had spoken at length in public about the apparent assassination attempt against Trump.
Harris said she used her conversation with him to reiterate her message that political violence is completely unacceptable. “I told him what I have said publicly: There is no place for political violence in our country,” she said.
Trump has continued to assert, without evidence, that the “rhetoric” of Harris and other Democrats has put his life in danger. The White House and Harris’s campaign have condemned the two apparent attempts on his life in recent weeks and issued statements saying they are glad Trump was not harmed.
“Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!” Trump wrote Monday in a lengthy social media post.
Harris said that she personally feels safe with her protection by the U.S. Secret Service, but added that many people — including women, immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ community “are not feeling safe” as a result of Trump’s rhetoric and policies.
But Harris’s harshest comments about Trump came in response to the question about his attacks on Haitian immigrants in Springfield.
Officials in the town have said there is no basis for Trump’s claims that Haitians are eating pets. In recent days, schools and government buildings in Springfield have been targeted by threats of violence, in some cases requiring them to be temporarily closed.
Harris noted that schools in the town had to be evacuated on a day that students were scheduled to have their pictures taken. “You know, there were children, elementary schoolchildren, who it was it was school photo day,” Harris said. “Children. Children. A whole community put in fear.”
Harris has largely eschewed interviews with journalists since launching her presidential campaign when President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on July 21, instead preferring campaign rallies and other settings where she has stuck to largely scripted remarks. The approach had led Trump’s campaign to say that Harris struggles to speak extemporaneously and answer unexpected questions.
Harris silenced some of those critiques with what analysts in both parties said was a strong performance at last week’s debate, although Trump’s allies still argue that unscripted events tend to expose her limitations.
Harris avoided any clear stumbles during Tuesday’s interview as she fielded questions from Eugene Daniels of Politico, Tonya Mosley of NPR and Gerren Gaynor of TheGrio.
The event was co-hosted by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, and the audience included working journalists as well as students from local historically Black colleges and universities.
Unlike Trump’s raucous meeting with NABJ in July, which included some boos, applause, audible gasps and jeers, Harris’s sit-down was more staid, with the audience largely silent throughout. It took place across the street from the National Constitution Center, where last week’s debate was held.
Amy B Wang, Patrick Svitek and Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
